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CHRIST AND 
THE CRITICS 





CHRIST AND 
THE CRITICS 


APDEKFENCE Ob THE DIVINITY OF 
JESUSVPAGAINS DOUHE A ELACKS.OF 
MODERN SCEPTICAL CRITICISM 


BY HILARIN ‘FELDER, O.M.Cap. 





TRANSLATED FROM the ORIGINAL GERMAN 


BY JOHN L. ‘STODDARD 


Author of “ Rebuilding a Lost Faith” 


VOLUME I 





New York, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO 


BENZIGER BROTHERS |} 


PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 


APPROBATIO ORDINIS 


PRAESENTIUM vigore annuimus, ut opus cui titulus Christ and the 
Critics [Jesus Christus] (t. I et II, editio anglica) a P. Hilarino 
Felder, in Provincia Helvetica S. Theologiae Doctore et Lectore 
exaratum et a duobus Ordinis nostri theologis examinatum, servatis 
aliunde servandis, typis mandari et publici juris fieri possit et valeat. 

Romae, e Curia nostra generali, die 15 Julii, 1922. 


Fr. JOSEPHUS ANT. A PERSICETO. 
O.F.M.Capr., MINISTER GENERALIS. 


Wibil Obstat 
F THOMAS BERGH, O.S.B., 


CENSOR DEPUTATUS 


Smprimatur 
EDM. CAN. SURM NT, 


VICARIUS GENERALIS 


WESTMONASTERI! 
até 34 Januari, to24. 


Made and Printed in Great Britain. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION “ “ 2 fe - é = 
I.—CuHRIST AND SCEPTICAL CRITICISM “A - - 
II].—CurIST AND HIS BELIEVING APOLOGISTS ‘ 7 


PART I.—THE SOURCES 


REVIEW OF CHRISTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES - - 
Cuap. I.—Tur GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS ~ - 


i.—Genuineness of the Gospels and Recent Criticism - 
iii—Non-Catholic Proofs of the Genuineness of the Gospels 
1.—The Uncanonical or Apocryphal Gospels - - 
2.—The Non-Catholic Teachers - - - 
3.—The Non-Christian Writers - 
iii.—Catholic Witnesses for the Authenticity of the Gospels 
1.—The Canonical Gospels Themselves - ~ 
2.—Early Church Literature - - - - 
3.—The Universal Church Tradition - - ~ 


Cuarp. IJ].—TuHe CRregpDIBILITY OF THE GOSPELS - s 


i.—Their Credibility Disputed - - - 
1.—The Theory of Deception - 
2.—The ‘* Natural ’? Explanation of the Gospels 
3.—The Mythical Hypothesis - - - 
4.—The Tendency-Hypothesis - 
8 —The Sceptical Criticism of the Gospels 
6.—The Evolutionary Hypothesis - 
ii—The Proofs of Credibility - ~ - 
1.—The Gospels Themselves - - 
(a) The Synoptic Gospels - 
i The Gospel of Jonny i - - 
2.—The Evangelists - - 
3.—The Contemporaries - - 
4.—The Enemies - - - 


PAGE 


PART II.—THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS 


OF CHRIST 


INTRODUCTORY S 2 E he 2 i y 
Cuap. I.—Tue Fact or CuHrist’s MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS 
ii—The Messianic Testimony of Jesus to himself in 


General - - 

iii—Announcement of Christ’s Testimony to himself as the 
Messiah _ - - 

iii.iDevelopment of Christ’s Testimony to himself as the 
Messiah - - 


iv.—Completion of Christ’s own Testimony to his Messiah- 
ship - - - : : 


vi Christ and tbe Critics 


Cuap. II.—CoNnTENT OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF 


CHRIST - - - - - - 148 
i.—The Conception of the Messiah before Jesus Christ - 148 
1.—The Conception of the Messiah in Old Testament 
Prophecies 149 
2.—The Pharisaical and Rabbinical Concept of the 
Messiah - 154 
3.—The Apocalyptic and Eschatological Notion of 
the Messiah - - 163 
ii.—Christ’s Idea of the Messiah_~ - - 170 
1.—Rejection of the Messianic Notions of the Rabbis 
and Apocalyptic Writers 170 
2.—Adoption and Extension of the Old Testament 
Notion of the Messiah - - - - 1977 
Cuap. II].—OrRIGIN OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF 
CHRIST - - ~ - - - 195 
ii—Origin of the Messianic Consciousness of Christ ac- 
cording to Modern Criticism = - - - 195 
ii.—Evolution of the Messianic Consciousness of Christ 
during his Public Life - - 206 
iii.—Origin of the Messianic Consciousness of Christ at his 
Baptism - - - 215 
iv._-Preparation of the Messianic Consciousness of Christ 
in the Consciousness of his Sonship- - - 225 
v.—Origin of the Messianic Consciousness of Christ in the 
Consciousness of his Nature - - -  aae 


PART III—THE DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS 


OF CHRIST 
Cuap. I.—TuHe Divinity oF CHRIST IN HIS LIFE - - 241 
i.—The Divine Consciousness of Christ as a Whole - 241 


1.—Friends and Enemies of the Divinity of Christ - 241 
2.—The Human and Divine Consciousness of Christ 245 
3-—The Expressions of the Divine Consciousness 


of Christ - - - - - - 250 
ii.—Christ’s Consciousness of his Divinity - 262 
1.—Christ’s General Consciousness of being the Son 

of God - 262 
2.—The First Revelation of the Son of God by Christ 

in the Temple - 269 
3.—Commencement of the Revelation of the Son of 

God to the Disciples = - - 272 
4.—Progress of the Revelation of the Divine Sonship 

to the Disciples and People in Galilee - - 281 


5-—-Intensification of the Revelation of the Son of 
God to the People and Unis in Judea and 
Jerusalem - 286 
6.—Conclusion of the Revelation of the Divine Son- 
ship to the Disciples and Judges in view of his 
Death - - - - - - 2094 


Contents 


Cuap. I1.—Tue Divinity oF CHRIST AFTER HIS DEATH z 


i.—The Divinity of Christ after the Resurrection - - 
iii—The Divinity of Christ in the Early Church - - 
1.—Its Representation in the Acts of the Apostles - 
2.—Historical Genuineness of this Representation - 
iii.St Paul and the Divinity of Christ - - - 
1.—Pauline Christology - 
2.—Origin of the Pauline Christology. —Paul an 
Jesus 

iv.—The Synoptists and the Divinity of Christ - 
1.—The Divinity of Christ as Spier by the 
Synoptists - 
2.—The Synoptic and the Real Portrait of Christ - 
v.—The Divinity of Christ as Represented by John - - 
1.—The Characteristic Form of the Se 
Christology - 


2.—The Origin of the Johannine Christology - - 
CONCLUSION * fs . Ai : 4 
INDEX OF AUTHORITIES - A f - ce a 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS - 4 “ S e Be 


Vil 
PAGE 
307 
309 


324 
331 
331 


hy ae 





my? / joe Hg i XQ ey roe? 7, u 
Tiva Aéyovow ot dvGpwrot elvas Tov vidv TOU avOpdrov 5 
Xd ef 6 Xpiotds 0 Yids tov Oeov Tov (Ov Tos. 


Whom do men say that the Son of man is? 
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
MAT ni Viy i320. 


ix 





INTRODUCTION 


I.—CHRIST AND SCEPTICAL CRITICISM 
ESUS CHRIST! No other problem arouses to-day 


keener, more universal and more serious attention. 

Even if we leave out of consideration the world of pro- 

fessing Christians and Christian believers, seekers after 

Christ are at present found in all classes of society, of all 
degrees of education and in all categories of doubters, includ- 
ing that of the wholly sceptical. 

The proof of this is seen in the enormous increase in the 
literature treating of the life of Jesus. Professor Albrecht 
Schweitzer of Strasbourg recently asserted that the mere 
enumeration of all the ‘‘ Lives of Jesus’’ which have ap- 
peared would alone wellnigh fill a volume.* 

‘* It is touching to see how everyone, from his own stand- 
point and sphere of interest, finds himself occupied with 
Jesus Christ, or wishes to have some part in him. Ever 
anew is the spectacle, which the second century offered in 
Gnosticism, repeated, revealing itself as a conflict between 
all conceivable schools of thought for the possession of Jesus 
Christ. We may commend our century at least for this, that 
it is earnestly engaged with the question of the essential 
character and value of Christianity, and that there is now 
more research and inquiry into this subject than there was 
thirty years ago. And in its method of groping its way and 
experimenting, in the extraordinary and abstruse answers 
which it evolves, in its caricatures and chaotic confusion— 
yes, even in its hate, we see real life and a serious struggle.’’? 
Thus does Adolf Harnack, the head of liberal Protestant 
theology, characterize the present longing for Christ; and, 
God be thanked, he is perfectly right. Despite all appear- 
ances to the contrary, the non-believing, intellectual world 
of Christendom to-day is thrilled by a mighty feeling of 
homesickness and a feverish longing for Christ. 

The profoundest causes for this phenomenon lie, doubtless, 
first of all, not in the modern intellectual world itself, but in 
that fulness of truth and holiness which has manifested itself 
in the person and religion of Christ, and always continues to 
attract man, even when he would like by every effort to 
escape it. Mankind, as such, undergoes the same experience 
as Goethe, one of the greatest and most intelligent of men, 


1 Von Reimarus zu Wrede, viii (Ttibingen, 1906). 
2 Wesen des Christentums, 2 £. (Leipzig, 190s). 


2 Christ and the Critics 


and one whom many have sought to put upon the same level 
with Christ, personally underwent.! The old philosopher of 
Weimar, who was anything but a believing Christian, and 
expressed himself for the most part only esthetically about 
the mighty revelation of Christ and Christianity, sometimes, 
in the intimacy of the family circle, ‘‘ praised the sublimity 


of Christ . . . always more seriously, more ardently and 
with ever increasing emotion until he burst into tears.’’ On 
one occasion he said: ‘‘I regard all the four Gospels as 


absolutely genuine, for there is in them the reflection of a 
greatnéss which emanated from the person of Christ, and 
is of as godlike a kind as has ever appeared on this earth. 
I bow before him, as the divine manifestation of the highest 
principle of morality. . . . Let intellectual culture continue 
to advance, let the natural sciences continue to grow in 
breadth and depth, and the human mind expand as much 
as it may, it will never go beyond the elevation and the moral 
culture of Christianity as it shines resplendent in the 
Gospels.’’? 

The profoundest minds have always experienced in them- 
selves the truth of these words of Goethe,* and discovered it 
also in reading the history of the centuries. The higher 
human civilization rises, and the more exalted the pinnacle of 
the truth is from which it surveys the conduct of mortals, the 
more it observes and admires the unique and mighty mani- 
festation of Christ and Christianity, before which all others 
fade and disappear like mist before the sun. 

If the interest in Christ, and in all problems connected with 
his person and activity, is even greater and more general in 
our modern unchristian, or only half-christian, society than 
it perhaps has ever been, this is not to be ascribed merely to 
the circumstance that our age, in contrast to the rationalistic 
period, exhibits a high degree of sense and comprehension 
for historical considerations (though only such considerations 
will ever do justice to Christ and Christianity); the credit for 
it is rather due—though very undeservedly—to the very un- 
belief of rationalism. And strange as this may sound, it is 
nevertheless true. 

On the one hand, the fruit which has gradually ripened 
from the anti-christian rationalism of the last century is so 
clearly poisonous and universally dangerous that mankind 
now sees itself compelled to creep on its knees to the Cross, 
if it is not to fall a victim to nihilism, atheism and satanism. 
On the other hand, those rationalistic critics of Christ, whose 
aim was to destroy all living faith in the incarnate God, 


1 Friedrich Daab, Jesus von Nazareth, 49 (Diisseldorf, 1907) ; Weidel, 
Jesu Persénlichkeit (Halle, 1908). | 
2 Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, viii, 148 f., 203 (Leipzig, 

1890). 
8 cf. Pfannmiiller, Jesus im Urtheil der Jahrhunderte (Leipzig, 1908). 


Sntroouction 3 


themselves helped to force science to consider again more 
seriously and thoroughly the life of the Saviour. No less a 
person than the rationalistic writer on civilization, Houston 
Stewart Chamberlain, has said: ‘‘ Such men as Strauss and 
Renan, two concave mirrors (one distorting all the perpen- 
dicular lines, the other all the lateral), have nevertheless 
effected an important work by directing the attention of 
thousands to the great miracle of the manifestation of Christ, 
and by thus preparing an audience ready to listen subse- 
quently to profounder thinkers and more sagacious men.”’* 

As a matter of fact, the majority of modern investigators of 
the life of Jesus have already become more sagacious, juster 
and—on that very account—also more conservative. Moreover, 
this state of things will increase with every year. We shall 
soon see that the rationalistic sons of those men regard 
both the documents which treat of the life of Jesus, and also 
the main outlines of that life, as having been made, in a great 
measure, absolutely certain by critical research. Yet these 
sons had inherited from their rationalistic fathers the dogma 
that the Gospel in general, and all the separate Gospels, had 
either been already historically condemned, or were still in 
a state of arrest pending examination. Yes, even though the 
majority of those atavistic prejudices have still remained, 
the fundamental, a priori one against whatever of Christianity 
has been handed down to us by tradition is disappearing. 
Indeed, a most ‘‘ modern” rationalistic investigator of this 
subject thinks that he can safely predict of his school that 
‘* Modern theology will one day become perfectly honour- 
able (Albrecht Schweitzer)..  “ Yet,” he at once: prudently 
adds, ‘‘ this is a prediction awaiting the future.” And to this 
draft on the future, a still more rationalistic colleague from 
the ranks of the laity adds the malicious comment : Quousque, 
tandem, Catilina ?? 

However this may be, rationalistic criticism, in spite of its 
clearer insight into the original sources of the life of Jesus, 
has not yet deigned to correct its inherited antagonistic 
christology in a single point. 

As for liberal Protestant research into the life of Jesus, 
it is historically more conservative than in previous decades ; 
but, theologically, it can still rival the worst periods of 
rationalism. Schweitzer, in speaking of this, rightly says: 
‘* Historical research into the life of Jesus did not proceed 
from a purely historic interest, but sought the Jesus of 
history, so that he might be an ally in its fight for freedom 
from dogma. . .. Thus each succeeding theological epoch 
has found in Jesus its own thoughts, and could not conceive 
of his life otherwise.’’® 


1 Die Grundlagen des XIX Jahrhunderts, 8th ed., I, 227 f. note 
(Miinchen, 1907). 
2 Arthur Drews, Die Christusmythe, ix (Jena, 1909). 3 tbid.; 4. 


4 Christ and the Critics 


This is even truer of the latest period of liberal theology 
than of any which preceded it, for it recklessly cuts out from 
the original Christian frame (which it then endeavours to 
restore) the figure of Christ in order to copy it again accord- 
ing to the foreshortened and distorted scale of its own subjec- 
tive, and therefore wholly arbitrary, conception. Externally, 
it holds fast to Christ and Christianity, but inwardly, and 
practically, everything which is precious in them has a new 
valuation put upon it, according to the critics’ private estimate, 
and all the Christian ideas are falsified or replaced by modern, 
incommensurable properties. 

On the whole, rationalistic theology becomes enthusiastic 
about Christ and Christianity only so far as it thinks that 
these represent freedom from dogma, contempt for the Church, 
modern civilization and the modern ideal of humanity. There 
remains in it hardly more than a faint semblance of what has, 
at all times and from the very beginning, been understood 
by the terms ‘‘ Christ” and ‘‘ Christianity.” 

We are fully aware of the severity of this reproach, and 
shall bring forward detailed proof for its justification in the 
course of our work. Suffice it for the moment to refer to the 
judgement of the philosopher and investigator of the life of 
Jesus, Edward von Hartmann. He maintains that the ‘‘ Chris- 
tianity’’ of Christ in liberal Protestantism is actually more 
sceptical than Islam, and is not essentially different from 
reformed Judaism; and that ideas of modern civilization are 
sailing about in it under a Christian flag, and adorned with 
merely the name of Christianity. Yet this is heralded as 
normal Christianity !* It is therefore undeniable that liberal 
Protestantism ‘‘ can no longer claim the right, in any sense, 
to be included in Christianity, and that it is as irreligious as 
it is unchristian.’’? 

** Modern theology has become completely absorbed in the 
idea of attributing its own religious ideals to Jesus.’ 

This inward falling away from Christ and Christianity, 
perceptible in present-day Protestantism, is not limited to 
scholarly books and learned men. It makes itself felt in one 
college and school after another. It is already the fashion 
in most of the universities, and forces its way into all the 
guilds of the students, and into all departments of study. 
D. Odland, Professor of Lutheran theology in Christiania, 
justly complains that, for the last twenty-five years, in the 
high schools of Germany there has prevailed a regular system 
of “counterfeiting ’’ in regard to religious ideas.4 Dr. Emil 


1 Die Selbstersetzung des Christentums und die Religion der Zu- 
kunft, 11, 57, 60, 64 (Berlin, 1874). 

2 Krists des Christentums in der modernen Theologie, 2nd ed., xi 
(Berlin, 1882). 

3 Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments, xiii (Sachsa i. Harz, 1gos). 

4 Hartl, Moderne Leben Jesu fir das Volk, in Theol.-prakt. Quartal- 
schrift, 722 (Linz, 1906). 


S$ntrooduction sce 


Rasmussen even gloats over the fact that ‘in Protestant 
countries half of the theological professorial chairs are occu- 
pied by men who no longer believe in the divinity of Jesus.” 
Professor W. Kriger has uttered the appalling statement 
that the vocation of theological instructors is to destroy the 
faith of youthful students and to cause scandal.? 

More and more does this unchristian Christianity of 
liberal criticism transplant itself to the pulpit, acquire 
control of the daily press, and make its way into all branches 
of polite literature. The novels of Peter Rosegger® and 
Gustav Frenssen,* founded on the life of Jesus, exert an 
especially baneful influence on both the higher and lower 
classes of society. With these also are associated the 
rationalistic popular books on the History of Religion, and 
a thoroughly sceptical kind of literature for the masses, on 
the Life. of Jesus, of which an extreme ‘‘ Modernist” sar- 
castically says: ‘‘ While the criticism of the Gospel manu- 
scripts advances with ever increasing boldness, and leaves 
to us less and less of an historical Jesus, in popular religious 
literature the number of works is increasing enormously 
which aim at the glorification of the man Jesus, and seek to 
make up for the lack of assured historical material with 
unctuous phrases and a loud assertion of conviction. As for 
the fine rhetoric, which is at present so conspicuous in the 
treatment of this subject, the less historical material it has to 
work with, the more approval it seems to receive.’’* 

Thus the masses of the people are gradually becoming ripe 
for spiritual apostasy from Christ and Christianity. Even our 
youth are taught that the history of Jesus, as related in the 
Gospels, is very legendary and that his sublime deeds are 
largely inventions. 

Naturally there remains only one more step to take, from the 
surviving external semblance and shadow of liberal Christi- 
anity to the complete denial of the historical existence of Christ. 
We have, therefore, recently observed without astonishment 
that the left radical wing of rationalistic criticism has dared 
to take this final step also, and has even dented the very 
existence of Jesus. Yet in this there is really only one thing 
to excite astonishment, and that is the fact that liberal 
theology showed itself so amazed and indignant about it. 

Certainly every attempt to undermine the complete histori- 
city of Jesus, and to make the rise of Christianity com- 
prehensible without a personal founder, must “ go to pieces 


1 Jesus, eine vergleichende psychopathologische Studie, 158 (Leipzig, 
1905). 

2 Philipp Huppert, Der deutsche Protestantismus zu Beginn des XX 
Jahrhunderts, 22 (K6ln, 1902). 

3 Frohe Botschaft des armen Stindners (Leipzig, 1906). 

* Hilligenlei (Berlin, 1905). 

5 A. Drews, Christusmythe, viii f. 


6 Christ and the Critics 


on the reef of facts.”!_ Houston Stewart Chamberlain writes : 
‘* The fact that the nineteenth century has fed itself on books 
in which it was shown that Christianity originated quite 
casually, by chance, as a phase of mythology or a dialectical 
antithesis, or I know not what, or again as a necessary 
product of Judaism, etc., will give in later ages eloquent 
testimony to the’ childishness of our judgement.’’* And yet 
it was precisely the critical world of the nineteenth century, 
the age of the sceptical criticism of the Gospels by Bruno 
Bauer, and that of the mythical theory of Strauss, that could 
allow such a thing to be put forward. From the standpoint 
of the latest investigation of the Gospels and the other sources 
of information about the life of Jesus, such an attemptis, how- 
ever, at once condemned by every serious critic and historian, 
whether he belongs to the rationalistic or the orthodox Chris- 
tian school of thought. We need waste no more words on 
this point here, especially as we must revert to the unpleasant 
subject at another place (chap. II). So far, however, the 
indignation in the camp of liberal theologians is compre- 
hensible. 

On the other hand, it must again be emphasized that the 
liberal school of investigators of the life of Jesus has no 
right to be excited over the latest deniers of Christ’s existence. 
In any case, it reminds us forcibly of Assuerus, who flees from 
his own shadow. For, however much it may refuse to 
acknowledge it, the latest form of radical criticism, which 
has become a veritable scandal, is really the offspring of the 
liberal school. It is true, as we have already acknowledged, 
this school has become, historically, more conservative, so 
long as it is not necessary to apply these clearer historical 
decisions to the domain of theology and christology. Tried 
by this test, however, it is certain to fail at once. The 
Gospel documents and the Gospels’ representation of Jesus 
are genuine, it says, but in case these go beyond the Pro- 
crustean bed of the liberal theory, they must be transformed 
and abbreviated in the name of ‘‘criticism,’’? until almost 
nothing more remains. 

Liberal investigation of the life of Jesus is thoroughly 
imbued with the spirit of negation. Its historian, Albrecht 
Schweitzer, who holds such views, confesses frankly: 
‘* There is nothing more negative than the result of research 
into the life of Jesus.”” This means nothing else than ‘‘ con- 
fusion and uncertainty about the historic Jesus.’’? Harnack, 
who is acclaimed enthusiastically by almost the entire rising 
generation of modern Protestant theologians, has already 
proclaimed a Christianity without Christ and christology. 


‘*Not the Son, but the Father only, has a place in the 


1 H. von Soden, Die wichtigsten Fragenim Leben Jesu,1 (Berlin, 1907). 
a Dé Grundlagen, i, 294. 3 Von Reimarus zu Wrede, viii, 306. 





Sntroduction % 


Gospel, as Jesus preached it.”! The Zirich theologian, 
P. Schmiedel, has written the discriminating preface to 
Smith’s Der vorchristliche Jesus, and elsewhere even affirms 
lightheartedly : ‘‘ No harm would be done to my innermost 
religious assets if I were convinced to-day that Jesus never 
lived.” 

From that standpoint to Albrecht Kalthoff’s assertion that 
we do not possess, for certain, a single word of Jesus, and 
must reject entirely the historical character of the Saviour,? 
and then to the Christ-myth of Arthur Drews is evidently not 
far to go. 

Moreover, both these spokesmen, in their attack upon the 
existence of Jesus, expressly confess that the origin of the 
views which they champion is to be ascribed to liberal 
research into the life of Jesus. Kalthoff characterizes his own 
mistakes with the remark that the ‘‘ prodigal son ’’—the 
modern sceptic—who does not yet wish to go back into the 
sheepfold of the Church and to the old ‘‘ Christianity en 
bloc,’’ cannot satisfy himself with the husks of liberal 
Protestant theology, which ‘‘ empties Christianity of all that 
once constituted its great strength and fulness,” and 
‘‘clutches at the straw of the historic Jesus,” of whom, 
however, nothing certain remains, except that he once 
existed. The whole liberal system of research into Jesus 
rests upon the assumption that ‘‘ all the characteristics of 
ancient Christianity, which are no longer suited to the man 
of to-day, are to be treated as spurious accessories to the 
Bible, or as additions and elaborations of a later age, or as 
the work of incipient ‘ Catholic corruption,’ and conse- 
quently are to be eliminated from the constituents of original 
Christianity.” It is only necessary to carry out this simple 
method to its logical conclusion to see that there will then 
remain ee more of the historical Jesus of liberal 
theology. 

Still more plainly does Arthur Drews assert that from the 
standpoint of liberal investigation into the life of Jesus, 
“‘the most advanced theologians proceed to controvert the 
fact that Jesus ever existed at all.”* They are ‘‘ encouraged 
to do this by the essentially negative results of so-called 
critical theology. . . . The critical and historical theology 
of Protestantism has itself poured such a flood of light into 
the origins of the Christian religion that the question of the 
historical existence of Jesus loses all the paradoxical char- 
acter which may have up to this time still adhered to it in 


1 Wesen des Christentums, ot. 

2 Die Entstehung des Christentums, 1 ff. 

3 Kalthoff, Das Christusproblem, 19; Religiése Weltanschauung, 184; 
Die Religion der Modernen, 2090. 

4 Die Religion als Selbstbewusstsein Gottes, 108 n. 


8 Christ and the Critics 


the eyes of many. It has, then, really no longer any occasion 
to get excited if anyone answers this question in a contrary 
sense, 4 

The resultant despair in regard to Jesus Christ lies, there- 
fore, wholly in the line of descent from such liberal Protestant 
research, and is a certain symptom of the malady from which 
it suffers. It is a confused, fevered dream of rationalistic 
theology, not its wide-awake consciousness; for the latter 
is not only permeated with the historical reality of Jesus, 
but, in general, draws nearer and nearer to the traditional 
conception of historical Christianity. No, it is its rational- 
istic sub-consciousness, which excludes every supernatural 
characteristic from the personality and religion of Jesus, and 
finally has nothing left but a shadowy image, for which we 
seek in vain to feel enthusiasm. 

It is pathetic that the majority of those who are to-day 
taking part most zealously in the study of Christ are once 
more chasing a mere phantom—a fata morgana; so that the 
paths of modern seekers after Christ lead them away from 
him just in proportion as they fancy they are approaching 
him. Even though a goodly number of believing critics and 
theologians are still to be found in the Protestant camp—in 
England far more than in Germany—it is, nevertheless, true 
that the Catholic Church, as a Church, is the only one that 
enters into the intellectual conflict in behalf of the divine 
Saviour, with whom it alone throughout the centuries has 
never broken faith. 


Il.— CHRIST AND HIS BELIEVING APOLOGISTS 


For positive Christianity Christ is everything. No believing 

Christian permits this sacred conviction to be contested. 
Even those who hold aloof from the faith also declare ‘‘ that 
the earthly life of Jesus Christ constitutes the origin, source, 
strength, and in the deepest sense the content of all that has 
ever been known under the name of the Christian religion ” 
(Chamberlain). This even those who dream of a Christianity 
without Christ do not deny. 
' Adolf Harnack has written: “The confession of the 
Christian Church is that there is salvation in none other, 
and that there is also no other name given unto men, by 
which we can be saved, than the name of Jesus Christ. With 
this confession it has begun; in this confession its martyrs 
have died; and from this confession it still derives its 
strength, as it did 1,800 years ago. It identifies with this 
Person the whole substance of religion—life in God, the 
forgiveness of sins, and consolation in suffering.” 


1 Drews, Christusmythe, vi, ix. 
2 Das Christentum und dite Geschichte, 3 (Leipzig, 1904). 





Se 


Fntroduction 9 


In a word, Jesus Christ is the beginning, centre, final aim, 
and heart of Christianity. No more is necessary in order to 
perceive the whole purport of the defence of Christ against 
the modern, negative standpoint in regard to Jesus. Who- 
ever co-operates in showing scientifically to the world the 
portrait of the divine Saviour, and in establishing it firmly 
in his own soul by the vital power of faith, accomplishes for 
himself and for humanity a high and ever-enduring’ intel- 
lectual and civilizing work, because Christ is ‘‘ full of grace 
and truth.” 

In view, then, of the conclusions which we have thus far 
reached, it will not be surprising if we prefer to use the 
words “‘a defence of Christ” instead of ‘‘a defence of 
Christianity.” Yet, in accordance with an old established 
habit, we must make Christianity, as such, the principal 
object of our investigation, and bring in the person of the 
Saviour simply as a constituent, though certainly the most 
important part, of this principal question. 

Christianity in its foundation, expansion and development, 
in its persecutions, its triumphs, its victorious course through 
the centuries, and in its creative activity in the spheres of 
religion and morals, science, art, culture, public life, the 
family and the individual soul, is really not only the greatest, 
mightiest and sublimest phenomenon of history, but a 
phenomenon which can never be explained without divine 
intervention. The mere fact that Christianity exists is and 
remains an obvious proof that its origin was divine, and that 
its founder was an ambassador of God. 

But to such considerations modern criticism is blind; and 
if we could at one stroke eliminate from the world the 
phenomenon of Christianity and its history, the inferences 
drawn from them to Christ would nevertheless be rejected as 
unscientific. In fact, in the circles of our opponents there is 
not the least agreement as to what Christianity really is, and 
it is always asserted—and it must be owned with some justice 
—that ‘‘ the historical importance of Christianity cannot be 
measured and correctly estimated without an accurate ac- 
quaintance with this phenomenon fof the person of Jesus 
Christ]. On the other hand, the contrary is not true, and the 
figure of Jesus Christ is to-day obscured and removed from us, 
rather than unveiled to our scrutinizing gaze by the historical 
evolution of the Churches.”! Nevertheless, in consequence of 
the latest criticism of the Gospels, ‘‘ the manifestation of the 
one divine Man has been made so prominent that unbelievers 
as well as believers cannot but recognize it as the source and 
central point of Christianity.” 

Thus the defence of Christianity cannot easily become a 


1 Die Grundlagen, i, 221. 
ARP Ohi ss Det 25: 


IO Christ and the Critics 


defence of Christ, which shall suit the modern world. But, 
on the contrary, the defence of Christ is always the best 
defence of Christianity, and is, above all, the one best suited 
to our time. 

Even apart from this, however, it is a welcome circum- 
stance that, both among believers and unbelievers, interest 
centres more and more upon the innermost core, the head 
and heart of the Christian religion—the one and only Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Nothing is more adapted to 
deepen and strengthen the orthodox point of view than to 
rivet one’s gaze upon the God-Man. And if there exists any 
hope whatever of reconciling the modern civilized world with 
Christianity, the reconciliation will surely be effected in the 
name and person of him of whom it was written: ‘‘ He is our 
peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the 
middle wall of partition between..us, having abolished in his 
flesh the enmity ” (Eph. ii, 14). 

Yet in order to meet the needs and demands of the present 
age, the defence of Jesus Christ must, in reference to its 
subject-matter, be otherwise constructed than a few years 
ago. It is not radically different, for its essential substance 
is and remains the old, unchangeable confession of the 
primitive Church, that ‘‘ Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God” (John xx, 31). Truth and error remain the same, and 
with them also the apologia perennis remains the same. But 
the enemy, according to the temporary condition of the world 
and science, continually changes his method of attack, and 
thereby forces the apologist to adapt himself to it in his 
vindication of the truth. This is especially true in reference 
to the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Thus our opponents’ attitude towards the foundations on 
which the proofs of the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus 
rest—namely, towards the sources and documents relating 
to the life of Jesus—has become, almost over night, an 
entirely different one. While sceptical criticism, until 
recently, almost universally altogether denied the genuine- 
ness and apostolic origin of the Gospels and of the New 
Testament writings, to-day it is more and more disposed, as 
we have already remarked, once more to assign these books 
to their original authors and their proper age. It even con- 
descends to recognize, on the whole, the honesty and literary 
integrity of the New Testament writers. Yet it evades the 
necessary conclusion as to the scientific credibility of the 
sources of the life of Jesus by assuming that the sacred 
writers have, consciously or unconsciously, not written the 
true and actual history of Jesus, but have designed the 
portrait of Christ according to the standards of the belief of 
that time and with the embellishments characteristic of the 
period. 


eee 


S$ntroduction II 


If, therefore, the genuineness of the original New Testa- 
ment sources has to be proved, another question also arises 
to-day—perhaps the most important of all—whether the 
Apostles and their pupils wished to write, and have actually 
recorded, the history of Jesus, or merely the belief about 
Jesus. That sufficient attention has not been paid to this 
question in our apologetic handbooks and our larger works, 
anyone can easily convince himself. 

Also those who are concerned with the vindication of the 
Messiahship and divinity of Christ ought, in the formation 
of their lines of defence, to keep the attitude of modern 
criticism, especially in its latest phase, more clearly in view 
than is usually the case. We leave out of consideration here 
how far this wish is justified in respect of the selection and 
exposition of the proofs of the Messiahship and divinity of 
Jesus. We shall have occasion to express our opinion on that 
point in another volume of this work. But the consciousness 
which Jesus had of his Messiahship and divinity is almost 
invariably treated, in the presentation of the evidence, too 
briefly and superficially. 

Whoever has come into close touch with modern liberal 
criticism—and it is against this that every defence of Christ 
must be to-day directed—will confess that the problems of 
the consciousness and personal testimony of our Lord have 
forced, and are still forcing, all other problems into the 
background. Did Jesus really know, and did he really 
confess, that he was the Christ? Whence comes his Mes- 
sianic consciousness? What is the nature of it? What did 
he think of his Messianic activity and character? Did he 
mean to imply that he was absolutely a supernatural, divine 
being or not? Did he conceive himself to be the Son of God 
in the strict metaphysical sense, or has the divine christology 
of the Church’s faith been formed only gradually under the 
influence of Pauline, synoptical and Johannine ideas? 

These and other questions are now of paramount interest, 
and justify us in dividing our defence of Christ into two 
parts—the first of which deals with the consciousness of 
Jesus, and the second with the evidence given by Jesus 
himself for his Messiahship and divinity. Whether this con- 
ception corresponds to the nature of the subject, in itself 
considered, we do not inquire. It certainly does correspond 
to the nature of antagonistic criticism at the present time, 
and to the standpoint of its representatives. It is, however, 
the duty and task of the peace-loving apologist to be as 
conciliatory as possible to his opponent, and to take the 
latter’s standpoint into consideration, although he may not 
be able to share it. 

Apart from its subject-matter, this is especially true of the 
method of the defence of Christ. Who is Christ? Are the 


12 Christ and the Critics 


Gospel, the person,’ the doctrine, the life and deeds of Christ 
—that is to say, is Christianity—actual history? Did Christ 
declare himself to be really the Messiah and God, and did he 
furnish the evidence for his Messiahship and deity? That is 
the one great historical question to which all others lead at 
last. 

Only by means of historical science is this question to be 
answered, and only thus is the appearance of Jesus Christ 
and Christianity on this earth to be comprehended and ex- 
plained. It is true history cannot immediately and plainly 
demonstrate the truth of the Christian revelation and of the 
divinity of Jesus Christ, but it can prove the truth of the fact 
that Christ represented himself as God, and his religion as 
divine, and that he undoubtedly furnished proofs for this 
assertion. And precisely in this do we see the scientific 
guarantee for the credibility of Christianity. Faith cannot 
be attested by means of history, but credibility can and 
must be demonstrated. Faith is not a matter of science; 
but it is the affair of science, and in this case also the affair 
of history, to prove that our faith is scientifically based upon 
the facts of revelation and Christianity, and is therefore 
reasonable. 

Now, it is true, modern criticism is always boasting of its 
purely historical method, and asserting that it has passed 
judgement upon primitive Christianity and its belief in Christ 
scientifically by means of history. Nothing is, however, 
more unhistorical than the procedure of negative criticism. 
This has been already pointed out, and we shall, step by step, 
be able to observe this everywhere. From Reimarus and 
Bauer to Harnack and Wrede, all the adherents of the so- 
called critical school approach the manifestation of Christ 
with the philosophical presumptions of rationalism, which 
claim that any supramundane intervention of God in Nature 
and any supernatural revelation are impossible, and therefore 
that everything supernatural in the life, words and works of 
Jesus must at the very outset be stricken out of his history. 
Richard Rothe and, after him, Otto Ritschl, utter the follow- 
ing ‘‘ fundamental thoughts of an easy-going, cheerful Chris- 
tianity ’’—characteristic of the liberal school of Schleier- 
macher, Albrecht Ritschl and Harnack: ‘‘ We know that 
nature does not allow herself to be disturbed in her sacred 
law of necessity by any miracles; we know that the fulness of 
the idea of humanity is not poured into one individual, and 
that even Jesus can have been only one genius among many; 
we know that the accounts of his life are only fables, which 
the childish imagination of his first, immature churches 
lovingly wove about the portrait which had imprinted itself 
indistinctly upon their recollection. . . . The historian must 
not expect our age to accept the old ecclesiastical ideas, 





S$ntroduction 13 


however true they may be. For this age necessarily repudi- 
ates everything superhuman and extraordinary.” 

To the majority of the rationalistic critics even these views 
are not extreme enough. Consciously or unconsciously, they 
judge of the facts of Christianity from the philosophical 
standpoint of agnosticism. According to this, ‘‘ human 
reason is entirely limited, first, to phenomena—that is, to the 
objects which come to external manifestation; and, secondly, 
to the manner of their manifestation. Beyond this reason 
may not and cannot go. Hence it cannot also lift itself to 
God, and cannot know his existence outside of visible things. 
It follows, therefore, that God can in no way be the direct 
subject of scientific research; and as for history, God has in 
no sense any part in it as an historical person. . .. In the 
person of Christ science and history can discern nothing but 
aman. Accordingly, everything is to be eliminated from his 
history which bears any semblance to the divine, and all his 
discourses and deeds—in short, everything which is not in 
keeping with his human character, position, education and 
local and temporal environment is to be denied him.””? 

This is not the place to disprove philosophically the error 
of rationalism and agnosticism. But it ought to be evident 
at once that it is contradictory to the historical method to 
adopt the rationalistic and agnostic point of view as a 
standard by which to estimate the person of Jesus Christ. 
Only that method is historical which, without any previous 
assumption, examines the facts of Christianity, and supple- 
ments, or possibly corrects, one’s own religious and philo- 
sophic opinions and views according to the result which has 
been historically established. If the modern investigation of 
the life of Jesus had been conducted thus, it would never 
have come, as it has, to the brink of ruin—a fact which is 
acknowledged even by its adherents. ° 

All the problems of this modern christology, and the whole 
opposition of Modernists to the Christ of the Gospels, find 
their explanation in the preconceived assumptions of ration- 
alistic and agnostic philosophy. 

If we, however, summon the opponents of the Christian 
revelation before the bar of fair, unclouded history, we, on 
our side, must of course be equally scrupulous. In this case 
we must not, as apologists, presuppose either the faith or the 
scientific credibility of Christianity. Thus, all those matters 
of christology which become knowable only in faith and 
through faith are excluded in advance from the defence of 
Christ. To these belong the mystery of the hypostatic 


1 Martin Kahler, Dogmatische Zeitfragen, i, 48 ff. (Leipzig, 1898). 

2 Pius X, Pascendt. 

3 A. Schweitzer, Von Retmarus zu Wrede, 4-11; Fr. Lipsius, Pro- 
testantenblatt, 702 (Berlin, 1906). 


14 Christ and the Critics 


union and the trinitarian relation of the Son of God to the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. 

But also the sources from which the truth about Christ and 
Christianity comes to us must be here estimated merely from 
the point of view of historical science, not from that of faith. 
According to Christian belief, the stream of ancient Church 
tradition bears along with it the gold of revelation, and 
Catholic consciousness recognizes tradition as a true witness, 
and, hence, as a source of supernatural faith. By the 
apologist, however, the wealth of Christian tradition must be 
weighed with the usual scales of historical criticism, and 
regarded as purely historical material. According to faith 
and theology, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments have also a twofold significance. They are, first, 
‘* divine books ”’—that is, books written under the special 
inspiration and guidance of the Holy Ghost, so that God 
himself is their chief author, although the human writer has 
done his work in them as a free instrument of God. In the 
second place, they are reliable, historical works concerning 
the origin and development of revealed religion. 

The apologist, however, must, from his standpoint, pay no 
attention to the alleged inspired character of the Bible. He 
must see in the sacred books of the New Testament merely 
historical documents treating of the life of Jesus and primitive 
Christianity, and he has first to prove that these documents 
are original and credible before he builds up from them the 
defence of Christ. 


eva ngalh at 
PoE SOURCES 





REVIEW OF CHRISTIAN AND NON- 
CHRISTIAN SOURCES 


INCE Jesus Christ, even if considered merely as an 
historical person, is the greatest man in the world’s 
history, it is fortunate that more and better authenti- 
cated accounts of him have been handed down to us 
than of any other personality of the ancient world. 
These accounts are partly Christian and partly non-christian. 
The latter are few in number, but this is not to be wondered 
at, if we reflect that ‘‘ Christ crucified was to the Jews a 
stumbling-block and to the Gentiles foolishness” (1 Cor. 
i, 23). Christianity appeared to the pagan Romans at first 
only as a Jewish sect. As such, they naturally felt little 
interest in it. There were also, in the first century after 
Christ, innumerable cults and religious confessions in the 
broad empire. Moreover, the Founder of the Christian 
religious movement had lived only in a corner of the Roman 
world, had been active for a very brief time, and had called 
forth no political revolution whatsoever. We cannot, there- 
fore, expect that Roman writers would pay attention to him. 
Suetonius mentions him cursorily in his biography of the 
Emperor Claudius. Tacitus, the sole consul in the ‘year 97, 
speaks of the execution of Christ under Pontius Pilate, and of 
the rapid spread of Christianity and its persecution.” Pliny, 
Governor of Bithynia, testifies in his letter to the Emperor 
Trajan that the believers worship Christ as God, and have 
been admonished by him to observe a strict morality.* 
Phlegon, the freedman of Hadrian, knows of the eclipse of 
the sun at the death of Jesus, and mentions that the latter 
predicted many events which had since then actually taken 
place. Phlegon’s utterances must, however, be taken with 
precaution, since he even confounds Christ with Peter. The 
philosopher, Celsus, who, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, 
first undertook to study Christianity minutely and to refute 
it, boasts indeed of being acquainted with sources of informa- 
tion concerning the life of Jesus until then completely un- 
known.° But in reality he had not at his disposal one single 
new fact. Apart from the Gospels, he was acquainted only 
with current Jewish gossip. °® 


Brita Ciauai2, c. 25. 2 Anal., XV, 44. 
Bei pes2s, X, Ob, 4 Origen, Contra Celsum, 11, 13, 33, 59- 
DRED bell, 13: 
6 See Seitz, Christuszeugnisse aus dem klasstschen Altertum von un- 
glaubiger Sette (Cdln, 1906). 
I. 17 2 


18 Christ and the Critics 


It is evident, especially in the Gospels of Matthew and 
John, that the Jews gave themselves, from the first, all 
imaginable trouble to pourtray the life of Jesus after their own 
fashion. Even before the first Gospel had been written, a 
nucléus of malicious legends had formed itself about the 
name of the hated Nazarene.! In the course of the first and 
at the beginning of the second century, the oral calumnies of 
the Jews against Christ increased in number. We learn this 
from Justin,” Tertullian,? and Hegesippus,* as well as from 
the scoffer Celsus.° Soon after, some of these false stories 
about Jesus were established in written form in the Talmud, 
the great organ of the Rabbis after Christ, and were thereby 
introduced into official Jewish theology.® After the fourth 
century, the oral and written web of lies consolidated itself 
more and more in a‘caricature of the life of Jesus (Toldoth 
Jeshu), which is even now in the hands of many children of 
Israel.?. According to the confession of Jewish investigators 
themselves, however, this whole tradition of the life of Jesus 
does not represent the truth concerning the Saviour, but 
merely the subjective views, wishes and feelings of post- 
christian Judaism.® This is certainly the mildest judgement 
that one could pronounce upon it. The Christians, beginning 
with the Apostle Matthew,® have always stigmatized the 
Jewish calumnies against Christ as patent lies and intentional 
slanders. The most important Jewish source of information 
concerning the life of Jesus is an unfortunately much con- 
tested passage from the “ Jewish Antiquities’’ of Flavius 
Josephus, a Jewish patriot and subsequently Roman renegade, 
towards the end of the first century.‘° We shall refer to this 
PACS weds 

But so much the more zealously did Christian writers 
endeavour to preserve the portrait and the words of the 
Master after he himself no more walked on earth. Already 
the Evangelist Luke can point to the fact that ‘‘ Many have 
taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things 


} Matt. xxviii, 15. 
* Dialogus cum Tryphone Jud@o, 17, 108, 117. 

3 Ad nationes, i, 143; de spectacults, c. 30. 

A. Parsepiug,) 2, coat, 23. 

5 Origen, Contra Celsum, ii, 13 s9q. 

¢ See Franz Delitzsch, Ernste Fragen an die Gebildeten der jiidischen 
Nation (Leipzig, 1880); Laible, Jesus Christus im Talmud (Leipzig, 
1900); A. Marmorstein, Talmud und Neues Testament (1908), together 
with the comprehensive article Jesus im Talmud, by Arnold Meyer, 
in Edgar Hennecke’s Handbuch zu den N. T, Apokryphen, ao ff. 
(Tiibingen, 1904). 

7 Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach qiudischen Quellen, 22 (Berlin, 
1902). 

8 See Krauss’s admissions, of. ctt., 237. 9 Matt. xxvili,irks 

10 Antiquttates Jos. Flavit, xviii, 3, 3. 

11 In the second volume of this work, ‘“ The Miracles of Jesus.” 


Christian and Won=Cbristtan Sources 1g 


that have been accomplished among us, according as they have 
delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye- 
witnesses and ministers of the word” (Luke i, 1). Hereby 
well meant, but not wholly satisfactory, records of small 
extent seem to have been in the mind of Luke. The authors 
of our Gospels added indeed the sifted material of these 
written documents to the substance of their own Gospels, 
which they already knew from the testimony of their own 
eyes and ears and those of others, and thus created finally 
their portraitures of the life of Christ. Critics of the Gospel 
sources have busied themselves for decades with the attempt 
to find out and reproduce the different sources used by the 
Evangelists. But even if they should ever succeed in finding 
a satisfactory solution of this literally and historically im- 
portant problem, they would not thereby bring to light any 
previously unknown documents of the life of Jesus. Those 
original sources are already hidden in our Gospels, and their 
historical worth is, in the last analysis, guaranteed only by 
the Evangelists. 

The so-called Logia, or “Sayings,’’ or “ Discourses’’ 
of the Lord still always form the principal theme for discus- 
sion. Probably, or even only possibly, there was in the very 
earliest times a collection of the sayings and discourses of the 
Lord. Schleiermacher in 1832 ‘‘ discovered” this when he 
misunderstood a note of Papias of Hierapolis. Papias 
reports :+ ‘‘ Now Matthew wrote down the Logia in the 
Hebrew tongue. But everyone translated them as best he 
could.”” These words have been always and only referred to 
our Matthew—that is, to his original Aramaic text, while 
Schleiermacher wrongly applied? it to only one collection of 
sayings and discourses.* The mischief that has since then 
been made with these Logia borders on the incredible. As 
a matter of fact, up to this time no one has succeeded in 
establishing with certainty any trace of them outside the 
Bible. The ‘‘ Sayings of Jesus” which have been found in 
recent times—as, for example, on the papyrus of Fayum in 
Central Egypt, on that of Behnesa in Lower Egypt,* and 
elsewhere—are interpolated Logia-texts. On the other hand, 
many critics think that the collection of Sayings lies at the 
basis of that special property which is common to the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke, in contrast to the Gospel of 
Mark. Harnack has lately even attempted to reconstruct 


mM Pusebius, 77. £., 111, 39. 

2 Proof given by Belser, Zinleztung in das N. T., 251-253 (Freiburg, 
Igor). 

5 Schleiermacher, Ueber die Zeugnisse des Papias von unseren beiden 
ersten Evangelien in Theolog. Studien, 735 (1832). 

4 See the complete literature on this subject in Ehrhard, Die altchrist- 
liche Literatur und thre Erforschung von 1884-1900, i, 124 (1900); and 
Otto Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, 1, 389-391 
(1g02). (All published by Herder, Freiburg.) 


20 Christ and the Critics 


the text of the Logia out of Matthew and Luke.’ Yet it 
remains questionable whether the Logia, or only a part of 
them, are thus recovered. But even if Harnack’s supposition 
should prove true, we should (let us once more emphasize the 
fact) even in the Logia find no new source of information 
about the life of Jesus, but only a new source of the Gospels. 

Quite without reason some modern critics assert that the 
Logia are identical with an original Gospel written by 
Matthew. Not only does this identity rest on mere imagina- 
tion, but ‘‘ probably the whole so-called original Matthew is 
not the Aramaic primitive form of our Matthew, but a 
fantasy, which first began to exist in the nineteenth century 
through the mistake of an old passage in the writings of a 
Church Father? . . . and has been already buried again at 
the commencement of the twentieth century.”? In any case, 
it is a biting irony on the impartiality of the criticism of 
negation that anyone, with a total disregard of the real 
Gospels, should have built up repeatedly the most airy 
hypotheses on Matthew’s alleged original book of Sayings, 
and have drawn from this ‘‘ authentic”? views about Christ 
and Christianity.* 

Exactly the same thing is true of the so-called original 
Mark. Ever since the middle of the nineteenth century all 
“critical” heads have been haunted by the dogma that a 
short primitive Gospel forms the basis of our Gospel of Mark, 
and, at a greater distance, of the other two synoptic Gospels 
also. And how many times have we seen the text of 
this original Mark reconstructed to the smallest details before 
our astonished eyes. On closer scrutiny and more serious 
investigation, however, the much-vaunted discovery of the 
original Mark dissolved into thin air. Harnack already some 
years ago was able to assert: ‘‘ The hypothesis that our 
canonical Mark has replaced an ‘original Mark’ rightly 
loses more and more adherents.”® At present this ‘‘ mutila- 
tion [of the Gospel of Mark] through the hypothesis of a 
primitive Mark, as well as its historical depreciation,’® is 
almost universally given up as uncritical. We have said 
that the original ante-evangelical documents concerning the 


1 A. Harnack, Spriche und Reden Jesu, die zweite Ouelle des Matthéus 
und Lukas, 88 ff, 175 ff. (Leipzig, 1907). 

2 Of Papias. (See above.) 

3 Richard Grttzmacher, Die /ungfraugeburt, 22 (Berlin, 1906); cf. 
Th. Zahn, Einlettung in das N.T., ii, 294 ff (Leipzig, 1899). 

4 So recently still Adolf Hausrath, Jesus und die N. T. Schriftsteller, 
i, 178 (Berlin, 1908); cf. Otto Pfleiderer, Das Urchristentum, seine 
Schriften und Lehren, ii, 161 (Berlin, 1902). 

> Chronologie der altchristhchen Literatur, i, 700 (Leipzig, 1897). 

6 B. Weiss, Die Quellen der synoptischen Uberlieferung, 222 (Leipzig, 
1908). 


Christian and Hon-Cbristtan Sources 21 


life of Jesus are incorporated in our canonical Gospels and 
have thereby been saved for history. This statement must, 
nevertheless, be a little modified. It appears that at least 
a small part of those old materials was not used by the New 
Testament writers. In old Christian literature there are 
found here and there various utterances of the Lord, and 
further items of information about Jesus Christ, or from him, 
which we seek for in vain in the canonical writings of the 
New Testament. These uncanonical fragments—the so-called 
Agvapha, or “ unclaimed ’’ words of the Lord—may perhaps 
in part contain the remainder of the so-called ante-evangelical 
accounts. Yet the yield in historical material which the 
Agrapha offer is very small, and in all cases very prob- 
lematical. Moreover, in the best authenticated specimen 
of the Agrapha, there remains the possibility that it can 
just as well be a later addition to the Gospels, as a frag- 
ment antedating the Gospels, or a fragment of the Gospel 
itself.? 

Only those Agrapha can be seriously considered which go 
back to the oldest uncanonical literary monuments of Chris- 
tianity, to the writings of the apostolic Fathers. Apart from 
the New Testament books, we possess a number of old 
Christian writings from the years a.p. 70 to 140, which 
contain individual items of information about Jesus Christ 
—the Doctrine of the Apostles, the Epistle of Barnabas, 
the Epistle of Clement, the Epistles of SS Ignatius and 
Polycarp, and the Apologies of Quadratus and Aristides. 
Their utterances are, indeed, very important, since they 
confirm in all essential features the Gospel portrait of the 
Saviour. Yet they do not offer any new, important narra- 
tions exceeding those of the Gospels. Evidently there was 
nothing really new to be learned about Jesus. Moreover, 
the Gospels enjoyed such high esteem, and Christianity held 
so firmly to the purely apostolical tradition, that representa- 
tions of Christ, which did not originate with the Apostles, 
would have had no prospect of success. 

For that very reason writers eager for novelties sought to 
put forged books into circulation bearing the names of the 
Apostles. Such, for example, were the Proclamation of Peter, 
the Acts of Peter, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the 
Twelve, the Gospels of Matthias, Philip and Thomas, and 


1 See Nestle, Mout Testamenti Greci Supplementum, 8g ff. (Lipsie, 
1896); Erwin Preusschen, Antilegomena. Die Reste der ausserkanont- 
schen Evangelien und urchrist, Uberlieferungen, 2nd ed., 26 (Giessen, 
190s); Alfred Resch, Agrapha, in Texte und Untersuchungen sur 
Gesch. der altchrist. Literatur, vol. XXX (1906); in regard to the value 
of the Agrapha for Gospel research Resch expresses himself perhaps too 
optimistically, pp. 387-398. 


22 Christ and tbe Critics 


even a Gospel of Judas.1_ The most of these apocryphal 
(‘“‘ secret’’) writings were invented by heretics for the pallia- 
tion of error. | 
Sometimes, however, even foolish believers allowed them- 
selves to commit such a ‘‘ pious fraud.” The apocryphal 
literature originating thus is, indeed, not without value for 
the history of the genuine apostolic writings, yet it cannot be 
considered as a source of information concerning the life 
of Jesus. Otto Pfleiderer is certainly right when he thus 
expresses his opinion regarding the apocryphal writings: 
“We see that in this débris of apocryphal remnants of the 
Gospels a great variety of materials has been jumbled 
together; together with primitive rock from the primary 
stratum of tradition are found also wonderful petrifications 
from late formations. But as literary and historical monu- 
ments, they have their incontestable importance.’ 
Moreover, the Apocrypha have come down to us only in 
a fragmentary form. In the gradually increasing flood of 
genuine and forged literary productions about Christ and 
Christianity the Church accepted finally only such books as 
she regarded as inspired, and therefore as Holy Scriptures 
of the New Testament. But the science of history, which 
does not allow the inspired character of the Bible, is also 
bound to recognize the thousand-year-old tradition that the 
truth about Jesus is to be found only in the New Testament.? 
The majority of the New Testament books belong to the 
literary category of didactic writings. They bring out the 
teachings of Jesus, but only here and there make an allusion 
to his life. Of all the didactic writings the Epistles of the 
Apostle Paul contain most historical information. The 
genuineness of the Pauline writings, if we make no reference 
to the pastoral writings and the Epistle to the Hebrews, is 
regarded, even in liberal circles, as an established fact. 
Wilhelm Wrede, an extremely liberal critic, has written on 
this subject the following incisive words: ‘‘ The view which 
is so widespread in Holland and uttered also sporadically in 
Germany—namely, that all of Paul’s Epistles belonged to 
a later age, we can now regard only as a great mistake of 
criticism. Epistles like the First to the Thessalonians, the 
Epistle to the Galatians, and the Second to the Corinthians, 
refer in a hundred particulars and allusions with the greatest 
definiteness to conditions such as are conceivable only but 
a few decades after the death of Jesus. And the forger is yet 


1 Tischendorf edited the editions of all the remnants of the apocryphal 
Gospels, EZvangelta apocrypha (Lipsiz, 1853); Nestle, V. 7. Gracz 
Supplementum (Lipsiz, 1896); Preusschen, Antilegomena (Giessen, 
1905); E. Hennecke, Meutestamentliche Apokryphen, and Handbuch 
zu den N. T,. Apokryphen (Ttibingen, 1904). 

2 Das Urchristentum, 2nd ed., li, 171. 

3 Oskar Holtzmann, Christus, 27 (Leipzig, 1907). 


a - 


Christian and Hon-Cbristian Sources 23 


to be born who would know how to invent such uninten- 
tional, individual, purely personal and instantly conceived 
expressions as are here so numerous, and who could, more- 
over, in the whole range of the Epistles put forward fraudu- 
lently a finished and original personality as their author.’’} 
Otto Schmiedel? remarks, in agreement with the foregoing : 
‘“It is settled, therefore, that the genuineness of the chief 
Pauline Epistles, and therewith the fundamental facts of the 
life of Jesus, are assured.” 

“Tt is true,’’? adds Adolf Harnack, “as the criticism of 
the early history of Christianity has even to-day not yet over- 
come the furthest extreme of radical censorship, there are 
not wanting a few scholars who declare that all the Epistles 
of Paul are ungenuine and forgeries of the second century.’ 
By serious critics, however, as has been said, only the 
Epistle to the Hebrews and the pastoral Epistles—that is, 
the two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus—are 
often objected to. 

The Pauline origin of the pastoral Epistles is, nevertheless, 
recognized more universally from year to year even in Pro- 
testant circles. B. Weiss, for example, makes them really 
equally genuine with the other Pauline writings.4 Th. Zahn 
alleges that ‘‘ the confidence with which for several genera- 
tions the genuiness of these Epistles has been denied, before 
that of all other Epistles bearing the name of Paul, finds no 
support in tradition.’’° Rather do the pastoral Epistles have 
to suffer simply because their contents will not everywhere 
coincide with the preconceived doctrinal opinions of the 
liberal critics. It is, moreover, undoubted even by our 
opponents—and that is the principal thing—that the pastoral 
Epistles elaborate ‘‘ Pauline material.”? ‘‘ That they are 
built up from the Pauline Epistles is a result of criticism 
which need not again be proved.”® 

Also in regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, its Pauline 


1 Paulus, 2 f. (Tiibingen, 1907). 

2 Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu Forschung, 2nd ed., 16 (Tiibin- 
gen, 1906). 

3 A. Harnack, Ueber die Glaubwirdigkett der evangel. Geschichte, 
in Christliche Welt, 19th year, 318 (1905). Harnack publishes here 
extracts from the lectures which he delivered at the Berlin University 
in the winter term of 1904-1905. 

4B. Weiss, Lehrbuch der Einlettung in das N. T., 3rd ed. (Berlin, 
1897), and Das Neue Testament, ii (1902). 

5 Einlettung in das N.T. 1, 457 (Leipzig, 1897). 

6 See proof in Zahn, op. ctt., pp. 459-489: Die Echthett der Briefe an 
Timotheus und Titus; Johannes Belser, Hinlettung in das N. T., 630- 
652 (Freiburg, 1901), Die HLigenart und Echthett der Briefe an 
Timotheus und Titus; Cornely, Jntroductio in utriusqgue Testamenti 
libros sacros, iii, 551 ff., ed. altera (Paris, 1892). 

7 Harnack, Dte Chronologie der altchrist, Literatur bis Eusebius, 
i, 480 (Leipzig, 1897). 

8 Harnack, zd. 


24 Christ and the Critics 


character is more and more conceded. Barth. Heigl* recently 
came, after thorough investigation, to the conclusion that 
there is no decisive argument against the direct authorship 
of Paul. And even those investigators who deny the Pauline 
origin of the Epistle do not call in question the fact that in 
its import it goes back to Paul, or at least is intimately 
related to him. On the other hand, they concede that the 
Epistle was written in the lifetime of the Apostle to the 
Gentiles, or, in any case, shortly after his death.2 Thus it 
unquestionably is to be regarded as a witness for Christian 
Opinions in the time of Paui. In case it was not a work of 
the great Apostle its importance would rather gain than lose 
thereby. It would then take its place near St Paul as an 
independent witness to inform us about the original Christian 
Church of those days, and to confirm the statements of the 
Apostle to the Gentiles. 

For research into the life of Christ the Pauline writings, in 
particular, are invaluable. The powerful personality of Jesus 
stood so vividly and constantly before the mental vision of 
Paul that it lives again in his Epistles and takes plastic form. 
Harnack estimates the historical value of his utterances as 
follows :3 ‘‘ We may be certain that what Paul informs us 
about Jesus, as fact, is almost as reliable and valuable as if 
the disciples had related it personally. I say almost as 
reliable because a subjective element is never to be quite 
excluded. But, on the whole, what Paul imparts to us of 
the historical Jesus, as fact, must have corresponded to the 
very earliest Christian preaching. There was never a con- 
troversy on this point between the Apostles. ... If one 
sums up what the post-pauline Christian writers down to 
the beginning of the second century report, and what Paul 
himself tells us of Jesus, one can truly speak of a fifth un- 
written Gospel; and in a certain way this Gospel is even more 
important than the four which we possess. However many 
or however few details that fifth ecumenical may contain, the 
great features of that portrait—the Teacher, the Prophet, 
the Saviour,* sublimity in humiliation, holiness, love of 
enemies, intercourse with sinners, the Cross and the mani- 
festations after death—are testified to. Before all, however, 
it is certain that this life of Jesus, however it may have 
terminated, and this personality, whatever characteristics it 


1 Verfasser und Addresse des Briefes an die Hebraer (Freiburg, 190s). 

2 B. Weiss, Lehrbuch der Einleitung in das N. T., puts its date at 
A.D. 65-66; Th. Zahn about A.D. 80; A. Jitilicher, Zinlettung in das N.T., 
136, at about 75-85; Harnack, Chronologie, 479, declares, ‘‘ as the only 
sure thing,’’ that the Epistle was written between 65 and os. 

3 Ueber die Glaubwirdigkett der evan. Geschichte, 319, 436. 

4 Harnack adds: ‘‘ But not one miracle is reported by him.”’ But 


how about Paul in 1 Cor. xv? And Quadratus (Eusebius, H. Z., 
19503; 2) 10 


EE 


Christian and Hon-Christian Sources 25 


may have had, have laid the foundation for the declaration 
of faith : ‘ This is the Lord and the Son of God.’ ”’ 

Formal pourtrayals of the life of Jesus are contained, how- 
ever, only in the four canonical Gospels. Precisely for the 
reason that they proclaimed the Gospel—‘ the glad tidings ”’ 
—of Jesus Christ and his salvation, they received already in 
the earliest times the name: ‘‘ Gospels of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.” The 
Gospels are, in fact, nothing else than the classic sources 
of information and the documents of the divine-human life 
and history of Jesus Christ. 

It becomes at once comprehensible, therefore, why, ever 
since the days of incipient rationalism—that is, for about 
one hundred and forty years—the question of the historical 
value of these fundamental books of our religion has been 
always over and over again asked and answered. From this 
side and from that, out of the conflict of opinions and out of 
serious research there has grown up an exceedingly rich and 
almost unlimited literature connected with the criticism of 
the Gospels. Attack and defence have been renewed in- 
numerable times, in all conceivable positions, and with the 
sharpest intellectual weapons. To-day we can estimate with 
perfect confidence the results gained, which mean a brilliant 
vindication of the Gospels. Even if the conflict may enter 
into many a new phase, another answer to these questions 
is simply impossible. 

The historical value of our Gospels depends, of course, 
like that of every other source of history, upon two points. 
One question is, whether they are authentic—that is, whether 
they really originate from an epoch near, and from men who 
themselves stood in proximity to the events described; the 
second is, whether they are credible—that is, whether we may 
rely upon these men and their narrative. Accordingly, we have 
now to examine and put to the test the authenticity and the 
credibility of the Gospels. 


CHAPTER I 
THE GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS 


I.—GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPELS AND RECENT CRITICISM. 


CCORDING to Christian tradition, the four Gospels 
had their origin in the second half of the first 
century; the three so-called ‘“ synoptic’’ Gospels 
—that is, Gospels written from a common point 
of view—originating between the years A.D. 50 

and 7o; the fourth, however, between 80 and 100. Tradition 
also points out as the authors of the four Gospels, the 
publican Levi, subsequently the Apostle Matthew ; the disciple 
of St Peter, Mark; the physician and pupil of St Paul, 
Luke; and John, the son of Zebedee, one of the original 
twelve Apostles. 

It was rationalism that first attacked the correctness of 
these assertions. In so doing it admittedlyt did not allow 
itself to be guided by historical arguments (though these are 
the only ones which are decisive), but by preconceived 
religio-philosophical opinions. It wanted especially at any 
price to eliminate the supernatural entirely, and for this 
purpose sought for a long time to undermine the credibility 
of the Gospels, which are themselves in complete harmony 
with the supernatural. Yet all the attempts to attain this 
end broke down before the indubitable fact that we here have 
to do with writings issuing from the immediate circle of the 
disciples of Jesus and the Apostles. 

Then Ferdinand Christian Baur and his pupil, David 
Friedrich Strauss, were bold enough totally to ignore the 
genuineness of the Gospels in order to create thus a clear 
path for the rationalistic explanation of Christianity. 

Strauss placed the origin of the Gospels at 150 years after 
Christ, and certainly needed all that time as a support for 
his airy hypothesis that the Christianity of the Gospels grew 
gradually out of legends. 

It was Baur himself who gave the death-blow to the 
mythical theory of his pupil, but he invented the hypothesis 
of “deception,’’ which, by the way, is equally valueless. 
Appealing to the ‘‘ higher criticism,” he maintained that the 
early history of Christianity ran its course in continual 


1 Strauss, Das Leben Jesu, 3rd ed., pp. 86, 94 ff. (Tiibingen, 1838); 
Renan, Vze de Jésus, vi (Berlin, 1863); Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu 
Wrede, pp. 4, 9, 15 (Tiibingen, 1907). 

26 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 27 


antagonism between the so-called Gentile-Christian policy of 
Paul and that of the party of Peter and the other Apostles, 
which was more friendly to the Jews; but that finally the 
hostile brothers became reconciled, and that then, in order 
to close the previous line of cleavage, the four Gospels were 
composed, being in reality documents resulting from a com- 
promise. 

According to Baur, ‘‘ Matthew’s Gospel” appeared about 
A.D. 130, and this was made use of about the year 150 to 
produce the Gospel of the heretic Marcion, and to the work 
thus formed was given the name of ‘‘ Luke.” Soon after, out 
of Matthew and Luke was compiled the work known as 
** Mark”; and, finally, about a.D. 170, the Gospel of ‘* John ”’ 
first saw the light. 

It was considered a great piece of good fortune to have 
suddenly found all this out at one stroke, and thereby to have 
turned all the old literature of Christianity topsy-turvy. 
Baur became, on this account, the founder of the “ younger 
Tubingen school,” which was very properly designated as 
‘critical, with a distinct purpose,” although it called itself 
** historical.” Whoever did not agree with it was simply 
declared to be lacking in a comprehension of “‘ higher 
historical criticism.” Késtlin, Zeller, Schwegler and Holsten 
went over entirely, Keim, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar and others 
partially, into the camp of Baur. 

Bruno Bauer went even further than the ‘‘ Master of 
Tibingen” in his unlimited criticism of primitive Christian 
literature.” In the name of ‘‘ higher criticism” the whole of 
early Christianity and with it also the Gospels were trans- 
formed into a seething cauldron, full of controversies, lies 
and subtleties.* 

That was too much. These ‘‘ fantastic ideas”’* could not 
maintain themselves permanently. Even De Wette° pre- 
dicted that such extravagant criticism would destroy itself ; 
and, like him, other thorough-going rationalists such as 
Karl Hase, Ewald, Schenkel and even Renan, refused to 
follow the school of Baur. Soon every honourable investi- 
gator was ashamed to be numbered with the ‘‘ Tiibingens,” 
and once more men called to mind seriously the declarations 
of primitive Christian literature, and sought to determine 
thereby the age of the Gospels. 

Thus, in the second half of the nineteenth century, criticism 


1 Baur, Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi (Tiibingen, 1845); Arztische 
Untersuchungen tiber die kanonischen Evangelien (1847). 

2 Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3rd ed., 51 note. 

3 Bauer, Xritik d. evang. Geschichte des Johannes; Krittk d. evang. 
Geschichte der Synoptiker; Kritik der Evangelien; Krittk der paulin- 
ischen Briefe 4 Schweitzer, Von Retmarus zu Wrede, g 

5 Kurzgefasstes exeget. Handbuch zum N. T. Apostelgeschichte, 
vol. V (Leipzig, 1848). 


28 Christ and the Critics 


approached always nearer to the traditional views. The 
first three, or synoptic Gospels, in the opinion of Theodor 
Keim,! originated between a.p. 7o and 117; according to 
Hilgenfeld? from A.D, 70 to 100; according to H. J. Holtz- 
mann® between a.p. 68 and roo; according to B. Weiss* 
between a.D. 69 and 95; according to Adolf Harnack® 
between A.D. 65 and 93, or very likely still earlier ;° and 
according to T. Zahn? between A.D. 60° and 75. Thus 
criticism comes in touch again with what tradition has to 
say in regard to the time of the composition of the first 
three Gospels. 

In the question of their authorship also tradition has proved 
itself more and more correct. Even if the school of Baur had 
made use of such late dates in order forcibly to take away 
the authorship of the New Testament from the Apostles and 
their contemporaries, and thereby to diminish its credibility, 
the Gospels, nevertheless, together with the earlier statements 
about their age, came back again to Matthew, Mark and 
Luke. 

That Matthew was the author of one Gospel will, indeed, 
be contested by no one; but, according to modern criticism, 
it is questionable whether Matthew wrote only a very old 
Gospel in the Aramaic tongue, or also in Greek the book 
named after him. 

The second Gospel is unanimously ascribed to the pupil of 
Peter, Mark. Only Schmiedel and Loisy raise objections to 
this idea, and thus give the impression of people who are 
continually grumbling about something. §® 

Liberal theology, however, refuses obstinately to allow the 
third synoptic Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles con- 
nected with it to be accepted as the work of Luke. Harnack 
had recently to complain : ‘‘ The untenableness of the tradition 
in regard to this is so generally taken now for granted that 
scarcely anyone takes any more trouble to prove it, or even to 
consider in the least the arguments of its opponents. One 
seems no longer willing to acknowledge that such arguments 
even exist. Jilicher® sees in the ascription of the book to 
Luke merely a ‘quixotic’ wish. So quickly does criticism 
forget, and in such a partisan spirit does it entrench itself 
in its theories !”'° To-day, after Harnack’s exhaustive pre- 


Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, I, 47 (1867); III, 129 ff. (1872). 
Historisch-Kritische Einleitung in das N. T., 461 ff., 515, 609 (1875), 
Einleitung in das N, T., 2nd ed (1886). 

Lehrbuch der Etnlettung in das N. T., 3rd ed. (1897). 

Die Chronologie der altchristl. Literatur, I, 651 ff. (1897). 

Die Apostelgeschichte, 217-277 (1908). 

Einleittung in das N. T., Il, 432 ff., 440 (1899). 

E. Wendling, Die Entstehung des Markus-Evangeliums (1908). 
Einlettung, 5th and 6th ed., 406 (1908). 

Lukas der Arzt, der Verfasser des dritten Evangeliums und der 
A postelgeschichte, 5 (Leipzig, 1906). 


oa OMRIR HF PS ww 


Tbe Genuineness of the Gospels 29 


sentation’ of the case, these theories also are finally con- 
demned. 

The Gospel of John has had from the earliest times a diff- 
cult position. On the one hand, it was already by tradition 
assigned to a later date; on the other, its contents constitute 
a great offence in the eyes of liberal critics. It has even 
been believed that the Fourth Gospel may be discarded as of 
no value. The most incredible views about its age and origin 
have been advanced. In recent years, however, critics have 
been forced, in this respect also, to come nearer and nearer to 
tradition. Thus, from a.p. 160-170 (according to Baur and 
Bruno Bauer), they have gone back to 150-160 (Schwegler), 
155 (Volkmar), 150(Zeller), about 150 (Bretschneider, Scholten 
and Matthes), 135-163 (Taylor), about 140 (Hilgenfeld, Haus- 
rath, Thoma), 130-135 (Litzelberger), 130 (Keim), 110-115 
(Nicholas, Renan, Schenkel), and 100 (Aubé).? 

To-day the origin of the Fourth Gospel is again generally 
assigned to the years of transition from the first to the second 
century, although the authorship of John is for the most part 
still doubted or positively denied by liberal criticism. A 
synopsis of the controversy over the authenticity of this 
Gospel is given by Watkins,® who at the same time cites also 
the wellnigh endless list of modern critics who defend the 
genuineness of the Johannine Gospel. 

This list could now be still further increased by many names, 
such as Karl Miller, B. Briickner, Gess, Kahnis, Schneder- 
mann, Leuschner, Paul Ewald, F. Barth, Lobstein, Kaftan, 
Resch, Koehler, Reynolds, Godet and others who are non- 
catholics, to say nothing of the Catholics. On the Protestant 
side there are arrayed against the latest attacks on the 
Gospel of John especially the following : Stanton, Drummond, 
Sanday, jt, Robinsons]. Hot AlHart,vi A Asquith; and 
C. R. Gregory. F. W. Worsley remains undecided whether 
he should ascribe the Fourth Gospel to the Apostle John or to 
the Presbyter John. 

A large number of the later liberal investigators concede 
that it is not possible to fail to recognize the Apostolic- 
Johannine character of the Fourth Gospel. They seek, never- 
theless, to eliminate its, to them, disagreeable doctrines by 
making these out to be later insertions made in an earlier 
Johannine manuscript—that is to say, they deny the unity of the 
Gospel. This is the standpoint of Ammon, Christ. Weisse, 
Renan, Alex. Schweitzer, Bertling, Delff, Wendt, Becker, 
Linder, Bacon, Frey, Fries, Lepsius, Vélter, v. Dobschiitz, 


1 Jn Lukas der Aret and Die Atostelgeschichte; cf. Weiss, Die 
Quellen des Lukasevangeliums (Stuttgart, 1907). 

2 H. J. Holtzmann, Zinlettung in das N. 7., 2nd ed., p. 476. 

3 Modern Criticism in its Relation to the Fourth Gospel, pp. 313-350 
(London, 1890). 


30 Christ and the Critics 


Schiitz, Soltau, Johannes Weiss. The extremely liberal Prof. 
Jiilicher of Marburg writes in opposition to all these theories 
of dismemberment: “‘ The hypotheses of dismemberment are 
already almost innumerable. Their aim is to prove that entire 
passages of John’s Gospel have disappeared, while others 
have been transplanted into erroneous contexts, and others 
still are subsequent interpolations. Or else a considerably 
shorter original Gospel of John is constructed, since it is 
claimed by some that the ‘ Galilean portions,’ by others that 
most of the accounts of miracles, and by others still that the 
lengthy discourses of Jesus, were inserted later. These hypo- 
theses, however, are to be rejected absolutely, for they break 
down completely before the homogeneity, both in form and 
content, of all the constituent parts of John’s Gospel.”* 

The latest of such hypotheses also, elaborated by Well- 
hausen? and G. Schwartz? on the ground of Oriental and 
Greek philology, and by Frederick Spitta* rather from a 
critical-theological standpoint, merely confirm the judgement 
of Jilicher. The whole Johannine question can be clearly 
stated thus: Is the canonical Fourth Gospel Johannine at all, 
or is it not? The fact that a large number of liberal critics 
seek to answer this question by Yes and No demonstrates 
clearly that in the controversy over the Fourth Gospel, as well 
as in the few remaining questions which are still disputed, 
Tradition proves itself right after all. 

Harnack wrote some years ago the well-known words: 
‘“In the criticism of the sources of primitive Christianity we 
are, without doubt, returning to tradition.’’> To-day he can 
say positively that this frank utterance, which then met with 
violent contradiction, has been proven® by the facts. In 
reality, the rationalistic criticism of the Gospels has made 
a complete fiasco, and even the liberal school of Ritschl 
and Harnack surrenders one position after another to the 
historic tradition of the Church. Especially in the matter of 
the authenticity of the Gospels, the points of difference have 
already been reduced to an insignificant minimum. This 
authenticity must have been, therefore, powerfully and mani- 
festly established; that, at least, is the teaching which the 
latest sceptical criticism gives us—namely, the negative proof 
of the correctness of the Christian view of the origin of the 
historical books of the New Testament. 

Let us now scrutinize the positive proofs, which we divide 
into ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical testimony. 


1 Einlettung in das N. T., 6th ed., p. 353 (Ttibingen, 1906). 
2 Das Evangelium Johannts (Berlin, 1908). 
8 Aporien im 4 Evangelium (Gottingen, 1907). 
4 Das Johannes-Evangelium als Quelle der Geschichte Jesu (Gottingen, 
1910). 
§ Geschichte der alichrist. Lit., 3rd ed., Il, 1, p. x. 
© Lukas der Arizt, Til, f. 





The Genuineness of the Gospels 31 


II.—Non-CaTHOLIC PROOFS OF THE GENUINENESS OF THE 
GOSPELS. 


1. The Uncanonical or Apocryphal Gospels. 


THE uncanonical or apocryphal Gospels have been often used, 
since the time of Volkmar, as a pretext for attacking the 
genuineness of the canonical, historical books of the New 
Testament. ‘‘ There are also,’ it is said, ‘‘ numerous false 
Gospels; and if it was possible to ascribe these to the 
Apostles, the possibility exists that the four Gospels recog- 
nized by the Church may also have been attributed to the 
wrong authors, and are therefore spurious !” 

This objection can, however, in any case rest only on an 
ignorance of the Apocrypha. These uncanonical fragments, 
on the contrary, confirm clearly and in a threefold way the 
apostolicity of the canonical Gospels. 

First, in respect of their contents, the apocryphal are 
imitations of the canonical Gospels. Whether they introduce, 
under the false name of an Apostle, narratives which are not 
found in the Gospels, or whether they adorn and amplify the 
stories actually contained in them, they have always at their 
disposal matter already existing in the genuine Gospels. The 
oldest Church Fathers already called attention to this fact; 
and now that the still existing fragments of the Apocrypha 
have been collected and examined carefully, we can convince 
ourselves of this step by step.? 

In the first place, the so-called ‘‘ Gospel to the Hebrews,”’ 
the oldest piece of apocryphal writing and the one most 
closely related to the canonical, had the text of Matthew as 
a subject to work on, and introduced into it clumsy additions 
which reveal themselves at once as forgeries. Thus, for 
example, in the narrative of our Lord’s temptation it makes 
him say: ‘‘So my mother seized me, and the Holy Ghost 
took me by one of the hairs of my head and carried me off 
to the lofty mountain of Thabor.’’? 

The ‘‘ Egyptian Gospel” of the Encratites (a sect of the 
Gnostics) transforms the text of the genuine Gospels as much 
as possible into a polemic against matrimony, and accordingly 
changes the redemptive plan of Jesus expressed in his words, 
‘*T am come that they might have life,” into ‘‘I am come 
to destroy the works of the Feminine.’ 

All that we possess of the ‘‘ Gospel of the Ebionites”’ (the 
Gospel of the twelve Apostles) endeavours in the same clumsy 
way to distort the words of our Lord in the canonical Gospels, 


1 See Walter Bauer, Das Leben Jesu im Zettalter der neutestamentl. 
Apokryphen (Tiibingen, 1909). 

2 Edgar Hennecke, Meutestamentliche Apokryphen, p. 19. 

SOP OLES HO 2s, 


32 Christ and the Critics 


and to give them an exactly opposite meaning. According 
to this, the main purpose of the life of Jesus was the sup- 
pression of sacrifices and the eating of meat.’ The contents 
of the fragmentary ‘‘ Gospel of Peter” correspond in their 
main features to the parallel contents of the canonical Gospels, 
only they are disfigured by ‘‘ coarseness and amplifications.” 
The Gnostic Gospels correct the received apostolic Gospel 
text by an appeal to private revelations, which are said to 
date back to the Apostles.? 

Finally, the numerous ‘‘ Childhood Gospels” indulge in 
insipid legends about the birth and childhood of the Saviour, 
in order to supply the deficiencies found in the Gospels of 
Matthew and Luke. How well or how badly they succeed in 
doing so may be seen from a few examples. 

The ‘‘ Gospel of Thomas” represents the five-year-old 
child Jesus as playing by the ford of a stream, collecting 
some of the flowing water into little pools and making it 
there wonderfully pure. Then the child amuses himself by 
making a paste of moist clay and forming out of it twelve 
sparrows, and as he is disturbed in this by an intruder, he 
cries to him in anger: ‘‘ Thou unjust, godless blockhead, 
what have the pools and the water done to thee? Lo, thou 
also shalt now wither like a tree.”’ And so it happened. On 
another occasion Jesus was jostled by a boy, and forthwith 
causes him to die. Being reproved by Joseph for such a 
‘‘ naughty deed,” and ‘‘ having had his ear suitably pulled 
for it. . . the child becomes indignant, and says: ‘ May it 
be thy lot to seek and not to find. Thou hast acted very 
unwisely.’”* In similar ways Jesus makes himself con- 
spicuous in school and synagogue as a genuine enfant 
terrible.° 

Even the ‘‘ First Gospel of James,” the least repulsive 
of the ‘* Childhood Gospels,” is distinguished by ‘‘ the desire 
to tell fabulous tales, and by curiosity to know all the details 
about the birth of Christ and how his mother arrived at her 
wonderful decision.® There is not wanting even a legend 
about it, including a somewhat indecent story of a midwife 
and some old wives’ gossip.””” 

If we compare, therefore, the fabulous, fantastic, involved 
and often comical passages, which for the most part fill the 
Apocrypha, with the text of the canonical Gospels, we find 
at once that the former are imitations, distortions, amplifica- 
tions and falsifications of the latter. 

But shadow presupposes light, imitation implies an original, 
and counterfeit coin proves the existence of the genuine, from 
which these are copied. Consequently there must also have 


Cf. Edgar Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, p. 26. 
ibid., pp. 28-32. 3 1b1d.; pp. 34-44. 4 2b1d., pp. 67 ff, 


1 
5 tbid., pp. 68 ff. S207), \Dwuto. 7 1bid., pp. 54-63. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 33 


been true Gospels for the very reason that there were false 
ones; and the true must have stood in the highest esteem, 
for otherwise so much trouble would not have been taken to 
invent and circulate the spurious. 

In respect to their origin, the apocryphal writings, together 
and separately, claim to be derived from the Apostles or the 
disciples of the Apostles. 

Whether their writers thus attributed to some Apostle their 
own ideas about Christianity and popular traditions about 
Christ from an innocent attempt to do good or from mis- 
placed zeal, in any case it was thought necessary to declare 
the Gospel in question to be the work of either Peter, Andrew, 
Philip, Thomas, Matthew, James or Judas; and the reason 
why every such apocryphal Gospel was ascribed to the Apostles 
or the Lord’s disciples can be found only in the firm conviction 
prevailing at the time that only Apostles and disciples had 
composed the Gospels which were universally acknowledged, 
and, hence, that every Gospel which did not claim to be 
apostolic, must itself be worthless. 

Yet, even if the Apocrypha were not apostolic, the majority 
of them are certainly very old. Hegesippus, who died about 
A.D. 180, already writes of the apocryphal books, and says 
that some of them had been written in his day.t The con- 
temporary of Hegesippus, Irenzus, also complains that 
‘* The heretics appeal to an incredible number of apocryphal 
and supposititious writings, which they themselves have 
invented. . . . In these they distort certain narratives which 
are found in the Gospel.’ 

In fact, we possess even now fragments of apocryphal 
Gospels which were written about the year a.D. 150.2 The 
Gospel to the Hebrews, which may be assigned to a date 
between A.D. 65 and 125, appears to have been merely a free 
translation and elaboration of the canonical Matthew.* But 
if there was already, soon after the apostolic era, such an 
extensive apocryphal Gospel-literature, then the models of 
these—the canonical Gospels—must undoubtedly have origin- 
ated in the apostolic age itself. 

The fate of the Apocrypha was irretrievably sealed by the 
fact that these false Gospels first appeared after the time of 
the Apostles. For the reason that they were not apostolic, 
they were, from the moment of their appearance, almost 
universally rejected by the Christian communities, were ex- 
cluded from public reading at divine service, and were con- 
demned by the pastors and Fathers of the Churches as 


anmusepius,//1. 2+; iV, C.'22: 2 Advers. Heres., i, c. 20. 
3S. Nestle, V¥. 7. Greci Supplementum; Harnack, Chronologie der 
altchristl. Literatur, i, 589; Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirch. 
Literatur, I, 377 ff.; Hennecke, Veutestamentl. Apokryphen, 22, 209, 46. 
4 Bardenhewer, zd., 379 f.; Hennecke, 7d., 11-21. 
I, 3 


34 Christ and tbe Critics 


spurious productions. While in the Church there was never 
expressed the least doubt of the genuineness of the canonical 
Gospels, the spuriousness and insignificance of the apocryphal, 
on the other hand, were positively established. 

Thus the argument with which Volkmar tries to impugn 
the authenticity of the canonical Gospels by means of the 
apocryphal is finally answered. He says, indeed, that the 
canonical Gospels in the ‘‘ Catholic Episcopate” of the early 
times did find ‘‘ universal recognition,” but that other 
(heretical) Churches had already at that time recognized 
other Gospels also.t That is true; but such Gospels were 
immediately exposed as being non-ecclesiastical, and their 
heretical defenders were characterized as renegade Chris- 
tians, because they introduced surreptitiously false, non- 
apostolic Gospels. 

The Apocrypha, therefore, in regard to their contents, 
origin and fate give the clearest testimony in favour of the 
genuineness of our four sacred Gospels. 

We come now to speak of the position which the earliest 
heretics took towards the Gospels. 


2. The Non-Catholic Teachers. 


The heretics of primitive Christianity were as firmly con- 
vinced of the authenticity of the Gospels as was the Catholic 
Church. 

It is true, as has been said, that some heretics made use 
of other, apocryphal Gospels also, in connection with the 
canonical, in order to put their non-evangelical doctrines in 
a better light. Moreover, they often chose out of the four 
canonical Gospels one special favourite which best corre- 
sponded to their views, and this they altered, on their own 
responsibility, to suit their own requirements. The Ebionites, 
for example, accepted only the Gospel of Matthew; the 
Marcionites a mutilated version of Luke; the Cerinthians the 
Gospel of Mark; and the Valentinians that of John.? 

Yet they contested only the credibility of the other Gospels 
—tha‘. is, they asserted that the remaining Evangelists had 
misunderstood or misinterpreted the teaching of the Lord; 
but that all four Gospels originated from the Apostles and 
their disciples, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—that is to 
say, that they were genuine—the heretics never doubted. 

Marcion indeed (about a.D. 117-138) swears by his version 
of Luke’s Gospel, which he cut to his own pattern, according 
to the bitter reproaches of Tertullian,* much as he liked. But 
he never disputes the genuineness of the four canonical Gospels. 
On the contrary, he alleges only that Matthew, Mark and 


1 Der Ursprung unserer Evangelien, 24 f. (1866). 
* Ivren Agu ser. i 3. 
3 Adv. Marcionem, iv, c. 2, 3; De carne Christi, c. 2. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 35 


John have put a false interpretation on the apostolic doctrine, 
while Paul and his pupil Luke have alone written it down 
correctly. 

‘* Marcion first and Marcion only,” says Tertullian, ‘‘ he, 
the improver of the Gospels; he, who so long had yearned 
for Christ, has discovered this, lamenting that Jesus had sent 
the Apostles too soon into the world, without waiting for the 
protection of Marcion!.. . Thus Marcion corroborates two 
things: first, that our Gospels were earlier, for otherwise he 
would not have been able to improve them; and second, that 
his Gospel appeared later, because it came out, as a novelty, 
from an attempt to improve ours.’’! 

Basilides, who died in a.pD. 130, also acknowledges the 
Gospels, and ‘‘ relates the history of Jesus exactly as they 
Goss" 

He quotes also the text of the Gospels with the pre- 
liminary remarks: ‘‘ Thus saith the Scripture,” or ‘‘ Thus it 
is written,’’ or “ So it is said in the Gospel,’’ or ‘ Thus speaks 
the Lord in the Gospel.” 

Basilides quotes especially Matthew,* Luke,® and (im- 
mediately after the year A.D. 100) John.® 

He even wrote twenty-four books Concerning the Gospel.’ 
But in order to establish his Gnostic fabulous stories, he saw 
himself obliged to invent his own fifth Gospel. This he 
ascribed to Matthias, the subsequently chosen Apostle, and 
maintained that the Redeemer had entrusted to him his 
(Gnostic) secret doctrine, which had remained unknown to 
the other Apostles and Evangelists. 

The Gnostic Valentinus (about a.p. 160) prefers to quote 
John,® but cites also the other Gospels.*® In order, how- 
ever, to provide for his doctrine of sons and ‘“‘ conjuga- 
tions,”!! he does not interpret the Gospels literally, but 
purely in an allegorical sense. 

Much more important, however, is the attitude which the 
Syrian Tatian assumes towards the Gospels. 

He had been converted to Christianity by his teacher, the 
philosopher and martyr, Justin, and had been received into 
the Church at Rome. In consequence of the exaggerated 
severity of his views, he nevertheless soon left the Catholic 
Church, returned to his home, and became head of the sect 
of the Encratites, who were ascetics in regard to food. 

In this capacity, between A.D. 172 and 180, he introduced 
into the Syrian Church a Gospel which he had already com- 


1 Tertullian, Adv. Marcitonem, c. 4. 

2 Hippolytus, Philosophum., vil, n. 27. SVe0sd sl, 22; 27% 

4 Clem. Alex., Stromata, iii, c. 1; Eptph., Her., xxiv, 5. 

5 Hippolytus, Phzlos., vii, n. 26. B20 ds ee, Tat 

* Paasebius, /7..2.,iv, Cc. 7. 8 Hippolytus, Phzlos., vii, 0. 20. 
* Trenzus, Adv. Ae7., 1, vii, 53 Lit) xi, 7. 

WO “bod aL vil, gis Vill, 2: 

ll gj7¢d., III, xi, 7. 


36 Christ and the Critics 


posed during the period of his Catholic life at Rome.’ He 
called this the Diatessaron, or The Gospel written by the 
Four, or The Gospel of the Four, It contains a history of 
the life and activity of Jesus, compiled out of the four 
canonical Gospels—a harmony of the Gospels. 

Even in the fourth century this Diatessaron was still the 
only Gospel which was used in the Syrian churches, both 
Catholic and non-catholic.2 Ephraem, the light of the 
Syrian Church, himself wrote a commentary on the Gospels, 
having for its basis the Diatessaron. After the latter had 
disappeared for 1,500 years, its text was reconstructed as far 
as possible from Ephraem’s commentary,*® and soon after an 
Arabic translation of the Diatessaron* was also found, as well 
as fragments of the original Syriac text.° According to 
these publications, there is no doubt that Tatian regarded 
our Gospels, and ours only, as genuine, and used them as 
such; and these lay before him in the form and extent in 
which we still possess them. ® 

With Tatian is connected the Syriac manuscript of the 
Gospels, which was discovered in the year 1892 in the 
monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sina. This so-called 
Syrus Sinaiticus,’ which contains the four Gospels, ‘‘ was 
translated about the year a.D. 4oo from a Greek original, 
which can hardly be later than the second century. Since 
the text is almost perfectly preserved, this Syrus Sinaiticus 
remains one of the most important—in fact, very probably 
the most important—of all the witnesses for our Gospels. 
is Whoever reads the Gospels in this form has them 
before him as the Christians of 1,700 years ago read them. 
It is noteworthy that the text of Tatian is most closely 
related to this text, and that both texts prove the essential 
integrity of our Gospels since the time of Marcus Aurelius.” 

Irenzeus, the keenest and best informed student of the 
history of heresies in the earliest times, is able, about 
A.D. 180, to proclaim the fact before the whole world, Catholic 
and non-catholic, that “‘ so great is the certainty in regard to 
our Gospels that the heretics themselves give testimony for 
them, and everyone proceeds to found his own doctrine out 
of them. If, therefore, our enemies testify for us, and make 


1 Cf. Harnack, Chronologie, i, 284 ff.; Bardenhewer, Geschichte der 
altt. Literatur, i, 258. 

2 Theodoret of Cyrus, Heret. fab. comp., i, 20. 

3 By Zahn, Forsch. zu Geschtcht. d. neutest. Kanons, i, 112 ff. 

4 A. Ciasca, Zatiant Evangeliorum harmonie arabice (Rome, 1888). 

5 H. Goussen, Studia theologica, i, 62-67; Harris, Fragments of the 
Commentary of Ephraem Syrus upon the Diatessaron (London, 1895). 

8 Cf. M. Maher, S.J., Recent Evidence for the Authenticity of the 
Gospels: Tatian’s Diatessaron (London, 1893). 

7 German translation by Merx, Die vier Kanonischen Evangelien 
nach threm altesten Texte (Berlin, 1897). 

8 Harnack, Reden und Aufsatze, 2nd ed., i, 320 (Giessen, 1906). 


The Genuineness of the Gospels a7 


use of our Gospels, the proof which they produce in their 
behalf stands sure and true.’ 

The Alogians alone, of all the heretics (A.D. 165-175), form 
an exception. They rejected especially the Gospel of John 
as unauthentic. In this, however, it is a question only of a 
handful of foolish people, who appeared and disappeared, 
without having left behind them any perceptible trace in the 
early Christian Church. 

Not even the keen-eyed Church historian Eusebius con- 
siders it worth while to make mention of them. Only 
Ireneus,* their contemporary, and somewhat later Epr- 
phanius,* give them a thought. From the description given 
by both these writers we perceive that the Alogians con- 
tested the authenticity of the Gospel of John in defiance of 
all history and all historical foundation, and purely out of 
doctrinal considerations. They believed that this Gospel 
formed the chief support of the views of the Montanists, 
which were diametrically opposed to theirs; and in self- 
defence against the latter, and as a downright falsehood, 
they made the assertion that not John, but the heretic 
Cerinthus, had been the author of the Fourth Gospel. 

This was, however, the most foolish assertion imaginable. 
John’s Gospel is devoted almost entirely to the defence of 
the real divinity of Jesus, while the doctrine of Cerinthus is 
aimed essentially at the denial of this divinity and of the 
supernaturalism of the Saviour.* Cerinthus was the intel- 
lectual leader of a judaizing sect which wanted to whitewash 
over the old rabbinical Mosaic law with a light coating of 
Christianity. In contrast to this, John proclaims the full, 
spiritual kingdom of Heaven, founded by Christ, the Son of 
God. How, then, could Cerinthus have written the Fourth, 
or Johannine, Gospel? 

But even apart from this, the statement of the Alogians— 
which was made much later—is proved to be a mere fiction by 
the fact that Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias and the whole school 
of John’s disciples in Asia Minor (the place where the Fourth 
Gospel originated) ascribe this Gospel unanimously to the 
Apostle John. Far from furnishing, therefore, an argument 
against the authenticity of the Johannine writings, the 
desperate attempt of the Alogians proves only that it was 
impossible, even in one single point, to break down the con- 
viction of all Christendom concerning the apostolicity of the 
Gospels. ° 

MeAGY di @7., \11,;\xi, 8: 

sRAdgewit ar... LI, xi, 0. 3 Heret., li, 3. 

Buren ousyd., 1) xxvi,.1 > Epiphaninus, 77. xxvill, bs.and xxx;-T4, 

5 The Alogi. cf. Harnack, Chronologie der altchristl. Literatur, i, 
376 ff.; Zahn, Einlettung in d. N. T., ii, p. 460; L. Duchesne, A7s- 
toire ancienne de TEglise, i, p. 304; M. Lepin, L’ortgine du quatriéme 
Evangile, pp. 211 ff. (Paris, 1907). 


38 Christ and the Critics 


3. The Non-Christian Writers. 


The non-christian writers, Jews as well as Pagans, testify 
to the authenticity of the Gospels whenever they have occa- 
sion to speak of them. 

Judaism was pleased to assume the part of Mephistopheles 
towards the Gospels—that is, it everywhere sought to distort 
the facts related in them, and to make the Gospel’s concep- 
tion of the persons of Christ and of his followers laughable. 

While the Christians were bringing the Gospel to the 
pagans, the Jews—according to St Justin—also sent ambas- 
sadors into the whole civilized world who calumniated* the 
Christian name to everyone who did not know of it, and 
accused Christ of the blackest crimes. The vilest means 
were good enough for them in their fight against Christianity. * 
Wherever a pagan set himself to work to ridicule the Gospels, 
the Jew also offered him his services in furnishing him with 
the most childish absurdities about the Gospel history.* This 
mass of lies was naturally transmitted from generation to 
generation, till it found in the Talmud a permanent abode, 
and developed finally, in the Toldoth Jeshu, into a popular 
pseudo-gospel. 

Of the veal Gospel the Jews themselves, even the Rabbis, 
knew in general extremely little. In the whole Talmud the 
Gospel is mentioned only once,® and even in this passage, 
which it is believed dates from A.D. 90 to rio, the text of the 
Gospel is incorrect and quoted merely from hearsay.® The 
dense ignorance of the Jews in regard to the Gospels, as well 
as their ardent hatred for them, is shown in the words of 
Rabban Tarphon: “ By the life of my children, should the 
writings of the Christians fall into my hands, I would burn 
them, together with the names of God which they contain.’’7 

However little confidence, therefore, the Jewish tradition 
about the New Testament writings can inspire, reaching 
back though it does into primitive Christianity, it is, never- 
theless, very important for us, because it never and nowhere 
dared to cast a doubt upon the genuineness of the Gospels. 
And yet the proof of their spuriousness would have been 
equivalent to saving the national honour of Judaism and to 
an annihilating criticism of Christianity. 

The pagan writers at first referred to the Gospels slight- 
ingly and contemptuously. Lactantius® gives the reason for 
this. Made fastidious by the brilliant and attractive language 


1 Justin, Dialog. cum Tryphone, c. 17, 117. Ate. se TOG 

3 Tertullian, Ad Nationes, i, 14. 

4 Origen, Contra Celsum, ii, 13 e¢ passim. 

5 Treatise on Sabbath. 

6 Cf. Laible, Christus im Talmud, 62 ff. (Leipzig, 1900); A. Meyer, 
Jesus im Talmud in Hennecke’s Handbuch, p. 70. 

7 Treatise on Sabbath, Tie USEMEUIZOE. ug Bit 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 39 


and descriptions of the classical writers, the educated pagans 
felt no interest whatever in the books of the Bible, which 
were written in a popular style and with a most unusual 
manner of thought and speech. Moreover, the Christians 
were anxious to conceal their sacred books from the pagans 
in order not to expose them to dishonour. 

Nevertheless, the Roman controversialists and sophists 
knew how to get possession of them little by little, and then 
began the fearful attacks of pagan science on the contents 
of the Gospels. The eclectic Celsus, the Epicurean and 
satirist Lucian of Samosata, the Neopythagorean Flavius 
Philostratus, the Neoplatonist Porphyrius, Julian the Apos- 
tate and others employed the whole power of their eloquence, 
the most trenchant acuteness of their logic and the biting 
sarcasm of their wit, to prove that the Evangelists had 
written nothing but incredible absurdities. Yet never did the 
Pagans let a doubt arise as to whether the Evangelists were 
really the authors of the books ascribed to them. Rather do 
they everywhere take it for granted that the Christian view 
of the apostolic origin of the Gospels is based upon the truth. 

Passing over all the others, let us refer to Celsus only, 
who is not merely the oldest but also the ablest of these 
writers who are hostile to Christianity, and of whom we, at 
the same time, possess the most definite information. Celsus’s 
book, entitled The True Word, was written in A.D. 178, and 
was refuted by Origen practically sentence by sentence. In 
fact, the latter has quoted in his reply nearly the whole text 
of Celsus, so that Theodore Keim? could reconstruct the 
greater part of it out of Origen’s answer. 

There results from this, first, that Celsus knew our 
Gospels well and had studied them. He even asserts? that 
he is thoroughly familiar with the entire doctrinal system of 
this Christianity of recent date and understands it perfectly. 
He even boasts: “I could still say much about the history of 
Jesus—that is, much that is true, and not like the written 
stories of his disciples; but I prefer to leave it unsaid.”* He 
wishes to argue from the Gospels alone, as the books which 
form the basis of Christianity, and thus to impale the Chris- 
tians on their own swords.® Then he actually quotes, in the 
course of his expositions, four passages from the Gospels. 
He uses preferably the work of Matthew, yet Hegtay in a 
great number of texts also from the other Gospels,® and 
these prove unquestionably that our Gospels lay before the 
pagan philosopher in their present textual form. 


1 Cf, Seitz, Christuszeugnisse aus dem Klasstschen Altertum von 
ungléubiger Sette, pp. 40-81. 

2 Celsus, Wahres Wort. (Ziirich, 1873). 

3 Origen, Contra Celsum, i, 12, 26. 

A AE ep Oddy Vy 7A 

6 Fr. Seraph. Muth, Der Kam}. des heidnischen Philosophen Celsus 
gegen das Christentum, 176-183 (Mainz, 1899). 


40° Christ and the Critics 


Of these he informs his readers expressly and repeatedly 
that they were written by the disciples,t and that subsequently 
many believers had fallen away from the ‘‘ Great Church,’” 
and had altered the text of the Gospels: ‘‘ Three or four 
times, and even more frequently, they have changed and 
spoiled the original, primitive text” until it exactly suited 
their fancy.2 But Celsus attacks and ridicules only the 
contents and credibility of the Gospels. That these originated 
with the Apostles, and that the apocryphal Gospels are merely 
imitations and counterfeits of the real ones, is for him a 
certainty. This testimony is crushing. Celsus criticises 
Christianity, and especially the Gospels, in the sharpest way, 
and was able to convince himself as to their genuineness or 
spuriousness, and must have done so. Proof of their post- 
apostolic origin would have been a veritable death-blow to the 
hated Christianity. 

If, then, he does not produce such a proof, it was only 
because he felt himself unable to awaken a single doubt of 
the fact. 

Thus do the non-ecclesiastical authorities of antiquity 
assert unanimously that the Gospels originate from the time 
of the primitive Church, and, indeed, from apostolic circles. 
But the ecclesiastical witnesses will give us still more exact 
and certain information on this point. 


IIJ.—CaTHOLIC WITNESSES FOR THE AUTHENTICITY OF 
THE GOSPELS. 


1. The Canonical Gospels Themselves. 


THE canonical Gospels themselves indicate with the greatest 
distinctness their apostolic origin. 

The most obvious proof of the great antiquity of the Gospels 
would, of course, be the existence of the original copies or 
autographs of the Evangelists. We must, however, give up 
this idea at once.. Not one of the older manuscripts, whether 
of a secular or religious character, has come down to us as an 
original manuscript of its author. They were all written on 
papyrus leaves—the only writing material of that time— 
unless we accept clay tablets and stone inscriptions. The 
papyrus, however, lasted only a short time, especially since 
the Gospels suffered greatly by reason of their frequent, 
almost daily, use. Thus the manuscripts of the Evangelists 
had already disappeared, it seems, before the end of the 
second century. Only the second and third hand copies of 
them resisted the ravages of time, and after the end of the 
third century parchment volumes replaced the papyrus rolls. 


1 Origen, 7b7d., 13, 15, 16. HEOUE 5) Vas BU: 
400. mtn e7. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 4I 


Our oldest manuscripts of the Bible date from the fourth 
and fifth centuries. Nevertheless, even that is a very. great 
age when we think that the earliest manuscripts of the Greek 
and Latin classics come to us only with the eighth and ninth 
centuries. Moreover, the biblical manuscripts of the times 
immediately succeeding this era are incomparably more 
numerous than the classical. The latter could be saved only’ 
with difficulty and in very few copies, while we possess of the 
New Testament alone over 3,800 manuscripts.? 

A comparison of these different manuscripts with one 
another brings us, moreover, to a time much more remote 
than the dates at which the individual copies originated. It 
is true all agree with one another in the immense majority of 
the texts. The different readings refer almost entirely to 
small details, and even the most striking variations change 
neither the least article of faith, nor the most insignificant 
moral doctrine. ? 

It is, nevertheless, a fact that a great number of these 
textual discrepancies are found already in the biblical manu- 
scripts of the fourth and fifth centuries, and, indeed, are of 
such a kind that we must suppose that we have to do here 
with copies of earlier models which, in their turn also, did not 
belong to one and the same family of manuscripts, but repre- 
sent different revisions of a still earlier epoch. 

This brings us already into the third or, indeed, into the 
second century. In this period, however, there existed not 
merely one or two manuscripts of the Bible; it is true rather, 
as we can conclude from the works of the Fathers, that the 
New Testament was spread over the whole Roman Empire. 
In all the churches it was read aloud at divine service, either 
in the original Greek, or in the Latin and Syriac translations, 
which were composed already in the second century. 

But in those days the circulation and the multiplication of 
books proceeded much more slowly than now, because every- 
thing had to be written by hand. Plainly, therefore, the 
original models were already existent at the beginning of the 
second century. The Gospels must, then, certainly go back 
to the period of the Apostles. 

Not only have the latest comparisons of the Gospel manu- 
scripts with the quotations made from them by the Fathers— 
compiled by Hermann von Soden with astonishing technical 
knowledge and patience—led to the evident result that the 
ecclesiastical writers about A.D, 140 already used the pre- 
decessors of those Gospel texts and Gospel manuscripts, as 
we possess them still to-day, but the interval between the 


1 Cf. C. R. Gregory, Die Griechischen Handschriften des N,. T. 
(Leipzig, 1908); H. von Soden, Die Schrifien des N. T, in threr dltesten 
erreitchbareu Textgestalt., i, vol. 1-3 (Berlin, 1902, 1906, 1907). 

2 See article Bibeltext in Wetzer and Weltes, Kirchenlextkon. 


& 


42 Christ and the Critics 


composition of the Gospels and the year A.D. 140 is ‘‘ so 
small that scarcely enough time remains for any essential 
changes in the text.’’ Consequently the external historical 
and critical stability of the New Testament proves that 
our four Gospels go back to the apostolic age, and have come 
down to us from that apostolic era essentially unchanged. 

But the internal features of the Gospels give us a still 
clearer and more definite light upon this point. The know- 
ledge of languages and linguistic forms displayed in them is 
at once characteristic. From these we perceive that the 
Evangelists, with the exception of Luke, were Semites, 
speaking Aramaic. 

The language of the New Testament has been studied 
thoroughly in recent years, and examined in its minutest 
idioms. Philologists have analysed sentence after sentence, 
and have even numbered and weighed, so to speak, all its 
phrases; and there has gradually arisen an entire library of 
dictionaries and grammatical works concerning the New 
Testament, in which the elements of the Gospel language 
are established and compared with other contemporaneous 
writings and documents. 

The result of all these labours is that the Greek idiom of 
the Gospels is proved to rest upon an essentially Aramaic 
basis. We not only find there single Aramaic expressions, 
such as Corban, Ephpheta, Talitha Cumi, Eloi, lamma 
sabacthani, but the Gospels are thoroughly permeated with 
Aramaic phrases and opinions. 

Moreover, the most exact acquaintance with the popular 
Greek dialects of that time never fully discloses the meaning 
of the Gospels. Only a knowledge of the Hebrew-Aramaic 
colloquial, popular speech furnishes the key to a complete 
understanding of the New Testament writings. These are 
composed in that Hebraic-Greek idiom, which the Jews of 
the first century acquired from their varied intercourse with 
Hellenic Romans, and introduced into their literature through 
their most important scholars, Philo (born 20 B.c.) and 
Flavius Josephus (born a.p. 37). 

The Gospels originate, therefore, from the pens of Christian 
writers who had learned the Greek language more or less 
accurately, but whose mother-tongue was the Aramaic 
dialect which Christ and his Apostles used. 

If the Evangelists are to be recognized from their speech 
as Jews, they appear from their acquaintance with their 
country to be inhabitants of Palestine. 

They describe very minutely, with information about in- 
numerable details, the places in which Jesus Christ lived and 
worked. Geographical, topographical, political, historic and 
religious conditions are mirrored on almost every page. The 
Galilean landscape; the lake of Genesareth and the life upon 


1d. von Soden. of. czt., 1646 ff. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 43 


its shores; the region bordering on the Jordan; the local 
peculiarities of the smallest hamlets; the distances from one 
village to another; the springs, gates, routes and paths; the 
environs of Jerusalem; the monuments and objects of interest 
of the Holy City—all these and a thousand other details are 
clearly delineated. Accordingly, wherever the Palestine of 
Christ’s time is now properly excavated and thoroughly in- 
vestigated, it is seen that all the statements of the Gospels 
agree precisely with what has been discovered. Only men 
who had originated in Palestine, or who, at least, had dwelt 
or passed some time there could write thus. 

If the preceding considerations make it extremely probable 
that these Jewish-Christian Palestinians lived and wrote in 
the first century of our Christian era, the supposition becomes 
certainty from the knowledge of history which the Evangelists 
possessed. 

An historical event of the first importance coincided with 
the early life of the primitive Church in Palestine—the 
destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in the year 
A.D. 70, razed ancient Israel to the ground and created new 
and absolutely different conditions in Palestine. Before that 
event there had been Roman dominion, tempered by an ex- 
tensive autonomy under the Jewish Sanhedrim; after that 
time there prevailed a complete and exclusive supremacy of 
the foreign, Roman, rulers, Formerly there had been a pre- 
dominant influence of the Jewish national population and 
parties ; afterwards, a powerful subjugation of all nationalistic 
efforts. Previously, a multiform religious life had existed, 
passing from synagogue to synagogue under the leadership 
of the Scribes and Pharisees, and, above all, an imposing 
temple ceremonial at Jerusalem; subsequently, the Temple, 
the heart of the Jewish nation, was swept away, the cere- 
monial was made impossible, and the children of Israel were 
left without a sacrifice, without an altar, without a sanctuary, 
their whole religious life having been drained away. Before 
then there had been an unrivalled national unity of the 
people; afterwards, an Israel scattered throughout all the 
world, without its own city, an alien among all nations—the 
‘‘ Wandering Jew.” In short, the scene of the history of 
the Jewish nation, that history itself, and the conditions of 
the people were all completely transformed by the capture 
and destruction of Jerusalem.! 

Now, whenever we open the Gospels, we are confronted 
plainly by the Palestinian Judaism before the destruction of 
ferusalem. In clear, brilliant colours the Evangelists paint 
for us the political, religious and social life of the time of 


1 Josephus, Wars of the Jews, vi and vii; Schiirer, Geschichte des 
Judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 3rd ed., 1, 455-656; Bousset, 
Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zettalter, pp. 91-168 
(Berlin, 1903). 


44, Christ and the Critics 


Christ. The relations between the pagan Chief of State and 
his Jewish vassals; the delicate conditions prevailing between 
the foreign officials and the local Great Council; the fine lines 
of demarcation in which the rights of the Roman judges col- 
lided with those of the Sanhedrim—all take for granted the 
continued existence of the Holy City. 

Even to the smallest details the Evangelists are fully con- 
versant with those times. The Roman-Jewish census, under 
the Emperor Augustus and the Governor of Syria, Quirinus ;* 
the Greek and Roman-~coins, which were in circulation 
together with the former Hebrew ones ;? the famine under 
Claudius ;? the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under that 
Emperor ;* the tragic ending of Herod Agrippa I;° the 
members of the whole Herodian dynasty ;® as well as other 
personal conditions, are all well known to the Evangelists. 
They understand also the complicated dealings of the religious 
and political parties of those days—the Pharisees, the Sad- 
ducees and Herodians, as well as those of the philosophical 
schools of the Stoics and Epicureans. Before their eyes still 
stands the magnificent capital of the country, with its monu- 
mental belt of walls and buildings of the temple, together 
with its priests and scribes, its gorgeous ceremonial and 
intricate observances of the Mosaic Law. 

Thus could write only those who had lived in Palestine 
before the decisive war with Rome, and who, partly before, 
partly after, the catastrophe of the year a.p. 70 had put their 
experiences on paper and transmitted them to posterity. 
John wrote only after the destruction of Jerusalem. The con- 
flict against the Gnostic heresy, which forced him to take 
pen in hand, began to be powerful only towards the end of 
the first century. The three synoptic Gospels must, how- 
ever, have appeared before the Jewish war. The prophecy 
of the destruction of the city and of the rejection of the 
Jewish people is set forth in these Gospels as still unfulfilled.7 
If the frightful ruin had already stood before the eyes of the 
synoptists as an accomplished fact, they certainly would not 
have kept silent about the event. Indeed, the prophecy and 
the fulfilment of that fearful tragedy would have thrilled their 
hearts and affected their entire representation profoundly. 

We may, however, go still further, and determine even 
more exactly the personality of the Evangelists. From their 


1 Luke ii, 1 ff.; Acts v, 37; Tacitus, Ammal., i, 11; Cassiodorus, 
Varia, ili, 62. 

2 Matt., xvil, 26; xxii, 10. 

3 Acts xi, 23; Josephus, Antiguitates Judaice, III, xv, 3; Suetonius, 
Vita Claudi2, xviii. 

4) ACts XViI1E. 2 302d 1 SERV, CU CLOT LE oe 

Sc MOtts igit, TGs UMe II, LOKI), 7 cts Milt SRY gi, 

3 Matt. xxili, 36; xxiv, 15, 24; Mark xiii, 1 ff.; Luke xix, 41 ff.; 
Koc ya. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 45 


knowledge of the life and activity of Jesus it is evident that 
they belonged either to the immediate or collateral circle of 
the Saviour’s disciples. 

The personality of Jesus, his appearance in public, his 
discourses and his deeds are drawn from life, and adhered to 
with striking vividness. The Evangelists conduct us to all 
the roads and paths trodden by his feet; they accompany us 
into all the cities and villages where he preached; to the 
solitary regions and the mountains where he prayed; and into 
the houses and market-places where he healed the sick and 
raised the dead. 

The whole Gospel history is related not only with astonish- 
ing exactitude and certainty, but also with touching candour 
and simplicity. Nowhere does the narrator obtrude himself ; 
nowhere does he bring out his own personal views and feel- 
ings; and scarcely even does he mention now and then the 
successes of the Saviour and the impression which his words 
and miracles produced. Only that is recorded which trans- 
pired before the eyes of the Evangelists, or had been seen 
and heard by immediate eye and ear witnesses. 

No later or foreign historian could have represented that, 
and in such a way. The Evangelists must themselves have 
been present, or at least have received the verbal accounts 
or written documents concerning the ‘‘ glad tidings” from 
associates and disciples of the Saviour. 

Nor is this all. By means of the individual characteristics of 
the separate Gospels, even the traditional account can be tested 
and confirmed, in accordance with which Matthew, Mark, 
Luke and John composed the historical works in question. 

First, Matthew. The earlier Church Fathers already recog- 
nized the fact that the Evangelists pass over in silence what- 
ever honours them, and report whatever humiliates them. In 
the first Gospel the repast which Matthew gave to the Lord 
after having been called to him is mentioned only casually, 
while into the list of the Apostles the (to Matthew) un- 
pleasant surname of ‘‘ the Publican” is inserted. This of 
itself should indicate that Matthew himself is the narrator. 

Moreover, the first Gospel emphasizes in particular the 
prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfilment. On 
this account it rightly became the Gospel of the Jewish Chris- 
tians—a fact which agrees remarkably well with the primitive 
tradition that ‘‘ Matthew published a Gospel among the 
Hebrews, and in their language.” 

Mark. In contrast to this, the second Gospel is evidently 
intended for the pagans, and primarily for the Romans. 
Jewish manners and usages are explained in this Gospel 
because they were unknown to its readers. The Jewish money- 
value is given in small Roman coinage, and we also meet 


i Trenzeus, Adv. Her.,, iii, 1. 


46 Christ and the Critics 


with Latin—instead of Greek—nomenclature in several places. 
Everywhere Peter and the Petrine mode of preaching to the 
pagans are here given the foremost place. Even the ex- 
tremest of the liberal critics! see in this a confirmation of the 
tradition that Mark has written this Gospel, as the Prince of 
the Apostles preached it in the capital of the Roman Empire, 
and especially for these Romans.” 

Luke. The third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles 
develop most fully the universalist programme of St Paul— 
that of the Gospel, as ‘‘ the power of God unto salvation to 
everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the 
Greek” (Rom. i, 16). In respect to contents, form and 
expression, these writings are thoroughly Pauline.* Their 
author must have been a pupil of the Apostle to the Gentiles, 
and by his use of technical medical expressions, observations 
and opinions he shows himself clearly to have been a 
physician.* No other can have written the third Gospel and 
the Acts of the Apostles than ‘‘ Luke, the beloved 
physician,’® and companion of Paul. 

John. Finally, the character of the Apostle John is im- 
printed on the Fourth Gospel throughout. The plastic cer- 
tainty, the sublime serenity, the tender, glowing enthusiasm, 
with which the portrait of the Saviour is brought before us; 
the simplicity, the depth of feeling, and the ideal flights of 
the thoughts, contents and representation of the entire book 
are all undoubtedly Johannine.® Moreover, as opposed to 
Harnack’s undemonstrable assertion,’ John expressly claims 
for himself the authorship of the Fourth Gospel with the 
clearly defined words: “ This is that disciple who giveth testi- 
mony of these things and hath written these things” (John 
xxi, 24); the disciple whom Jesus loved (John xxi, 20); who 
also leaned on his breast at the Last Supper, and said: “ Lord, 
who is he that shall betray thee?’’ who stood also beneath 
the Cross, and to whom the Saviour commended his mother 
(John xix, 26)—the beloved disciple—John. 

Thus we derive from the Gospels themselves the conviction 
that these writings of Jewish Christians from Palestine were 
composed in part before, in part shortly after, the destruction 
of Jerusalem; and that the Gospels themselves bring us into 


1 Jiilicher, Realenzyklopadie fur protestant. Theologte, 3rd ed., xii, 
293; Wernle, Die synoptische Frage, 208-223 (Freiburg, 1899). 

4 Eusebius, »7..\2.,, i111, 39; Clement. of . Alexandria, Aypotyper am 
1 Pet. v, 13; Eusebius, 7d., vi, 14. 

3 Harnack, Lukas der Aret; Die Apostelgeschichte (Leipzig, 1907). 

4 Harnack, Lukas, 122-137; Hobart, The Medical Language of St 
Luke (1882). 

POL VV erAL 

6 Cf. Zahn, Einlettung in das N.T., ii, pp. 466 ff.; Belser, Zinlettung 
in a N.7., pp. 343 ff.; Das Evangelium des hl. Johannes (Freiburg, 
1gos), 

7 Die Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur, i, 677; Wesen des 
Christentums, 13; see Zahn, zd., and in Realenzyklopddie, ix, 2807. 


Tbe Genuineness of the Gospels 47 


the immediate circle of the Apostles and their pupils, and 
name for us as their authors the Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John. Moreover, before the last Gospel has yet con- 
cluded its testimony to itself, and before the Apostle of love 
has published his book, the oldest writers of the Church 
already raise their voices to testify clearly and unmistakably, 
first, to the existence of the Gospels in general; then to the 
three Synoptics; and, soon after, to all the Evangelists 
together. 


2. Early Church Literature. 


The ancient literature of the Church appears from the very 
first as an eye and ear witness for the Gospels. 

Of course, only a few wholly casual utterances and reports 
are to be expected from it in the first century. Only a few, 
because we possess from that remote period hardly more 
than a few small writings of Christian origin. These were, 
moreover, simply pamphlets, and for the most part of such 
a special character, that there was no reason for their touch- 
ing on the question of the Gospels. 

But even aside from this, primitive Christian literature 
can at most only by chance define its position towards the 
subject we are considering, for that was precisely an age 
which had still seen and heard the Apostles and their pupils. 
The Apostolic words and living tradition meant to it almost 
everything. No need was felt of appealing to the writings of 
those whose preaching was still in the memories of all. It 
had not yet occurred to anyone to defend the Holy Scriptures, 
for the reason that no one ventured to attack them. All 
primitive Christian records, however, show an acquaintance 
with the Gospels, make use of them, and take it for granted 
that they are highly honoured by the Church. 

The Syrian and the Alexandrian-Egyptian Churches are in 
this respect represented by the so-called Teaching of the 
Twelve Apostles and the Epistle of Barnabas—the tormer 
composed in the last third of the first century, the latter at 
its termination.? 

In the Epistle of Barnabas texts from the writings of St 
Matthew? are twice quoted literally, while the sense of other 
passages is lightly referred to.? The Teaching of the Twelve 
Apostles quietly makes use of some thirty passages from 
Matthew, one from Mark, and four from Luke.* In four 


1 Funk, Opera Patrum apostolicorum, ed. 2a, 1, xii, xxi, ff.; Batiffol, 
Anctennes littératures chrétiennes; La littérature grecque, p. 72; Har- 
nack, Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur, i, pp. 410 ff.; Ehrhard, 
Die altchrisiliche Literatur und thre Erforschung, 1, pp. 37 ff.; Barden- 
hewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, i, 76-98. 

2 Ep. Barnabas, iv, 14. All patristic quotations are taken from 
Funk’s edition. 

® See Punk, 12.) 1, pp. 642 ff: 4 ibid., pp. 640 ff. 


48 Christ and the Critics 


other places it refers expressly to the Gospel in such words 
as: “Thus it stands in the Gospel,’’! ‘Thus you find it 
stated in the Gospel of our Lord,’’? ‘ Act according to the 
precept of the Gospel,’’? and “‘ As the Lord commands in his 
Gospel.’’* 

Therefore, exactly as we to-day quote the Gospels after 
nineteen centuries, so they were quoted already at the end of 
the first century, and taken for granted as well known. Yet 
they are said to have originated in the second century. 

Clement, whom Paul calls his fellow-worker, and whom 
Peter appointed Bishop of the Church at Rome, wrote in the 
years A.D. 95-97 a letter to the Corinthians, in which he 
certainly does not quote and transcribe the Gospels word for 
word, but makes use of at least ten passages out of the 
synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.® Hence, 
the successor of St Peter, ‘‘ in whose ears still echoed the 
preaching of the Apostles,’’® and with him “ many others 
also who had been instructed by the Apostles,’’’ received the 
synoptic Gospels directly from the hands of their authors, 
watched over them and transmitted them to posterity as a 
precious treasure. Whether the Gospel of St John also was 
in their possession cannot be positively determined. But if 
not, it need not surprise us, for this Gospel originated almost 
at the same time as the letter of Clement, and first appeared 
in Asia Minor, so that it had scarcely become known yet in 
Rome. 

Immediately at the beginning and during the first half of 
the second century we encounter in Asia Minor and Greece, 
as well as in Rome, a number of the pupils of the Apostles 
and witnesses of the apostolic era who already mention the 
Gospels much more clearly and frequently. The more the 
recollection of the direct, oral instruction of the disciples of 
the Lord disappeared, the more the teachers of the Church 
saw themselves compelled to remind the people of the written 
records of the Gospel, although the main emphasis was always 
laid on the unbroken doctrinal tradition of the Church. 

Of the existence of the Gospels in the Syrian Church we 
are informed by Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. Ignatius goes 
back far into the first century. He must have been born, at 
the latest, between A.D. 50 and 60, and was already a man 
while several of the Apostles, and above all his kindred spirit, 
John, the beloved Apostle, were still living. Soon after the 
latter’s death, Ignatius himself died at Rome, where he was 
thrown to the wild beasts during the reign of the Emperor 
Trajan (A.D. 98-117). While awaiting martyrdom he wrote 
seven letters, the genuineness of which is no longer doubted 


1 Didache, Xv, 3. 2 tbid., 4. tte c Rhea’ 
4 tao. M1ldy 2. 5 Funk, Opera FP. apott 2. h 645. 
6 Irenwus, Adv. Her., III, iii, 3. 7 1bid 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 49 


by anyone. In this testament of his faith and love the words 
and thoughts of the Gospels are forever on his lips. They are 
not literal citations which he thus recalls to his churches—for 
the earlier writers were accustomed to quote for the most 
part only freely; but Ignatius on every occasion puts his 
reliance on the apostolic books, and is thoroughly identified 
with their ideas and even their expressions. 

The synoptic Gospels certainly were in his possession. His 
acquaintance with them is evident in most of the letters.} 
But he adheres with especial fondness to the Gospel of John.? 
His intimate knowledge of this Fourth Gospel is, in fact, so 
extensive that the Protestant scholar, Theodor Zahn, is 
moved to make this admirable observation: ‘‘ The amplifica- 
tions of the utterances of Jesus found in John’s Gospel, and 
the application of these to quite different conditions, pre- 
supposes that Ignatius had already for a long time, both as 
reader and preacher, paid much attention to the Fourth 
Gospel. And he takes for granted a similar condition of 
things also among the Christians in Rome and Asia Minor.’’® 
Even Alfred Loisy* writes in agreement with this statement, 
that Ignatius is penetrated with the teaching and spirit of 
the Fourth Gospel to such an extent that he evidently must 
have been acquainted with this Gospel for a long time before 
the composition of his letters. 

Remarkable also are the utterances of St Ignatius about 
the Gospels in general. When he occasionally imparted 
admonitions, which he enforced by an appeal to the “ Doctrine 
of Christ,” some Christians, as he himself informs us, 
answered him: ‘‘If I do not find that written in the 
archives—that is, in the Gospel—I will not believe it.’’° 

The written Gospel, therefore, then existed; and men in 
matters of dispute appealed to it, and held its words to be the 
faithful exposition of apostolic truth. Ignatius even adds® 
that certain heretics were only too ready to be one-sided and 
to swear by the letter of the Gospel instead of taking in 
comprehensively the spirit of the whole written and oral 
teaching of Christ. Comprehended in this sense, the Gospels 
are “the fulfilment of eternal life,’’’ and are “as worthy of 
honour as was Christ, when actually present.’’® 

In Asia Minor Ignatius is immediately connected with his 
friend Polycarp. The latter was a pupil of the Apostle John, 
_1 Eph. xiv, 2; Trall. xi,1; Philad. iii, 1; Smyrn.i, 2 ff.; vi, 1; Polyc. 
Dar 383142. 

a nph. axe Magn. Vii;,1-fi3 vill, 23 Rom, vil, 2: ff.3 PAtlad. 11; 25 
vii, 1; ix, 1. Cf. Boese, Die Glaubwirdigkeit unserer Evangelien, 
71-83 (Freiburg, Herder, 1895). 


8. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, i, 905 (Leipzig, 
1888). 


4 Le Quatriéme Evangile, i, 6 ff. (Paris, 1903). 5 Philipp. viii, 2. 
6 id. 7 Philad. ix, 2. 8 id., Vv, 1, 2. 


1. 4 


50 Christ and the Critics 


and was appointed by him to be the head of the Church of 
Smyrna;' but he enjoyed also the instruction of other 
Apostles ‘‘ and associated with many who had seen Christ.’ 


With visible emotion St Irenzus relates of his teacher: “‘ I 
can still indicate the place where the blessed Polycarp 
preached . .. the addresses which he delivered to the 


people, as he described his association with John and with 
the others who had seen the Lord, and how he quoted their 
words. Polycarp also reported all that he had heard from 
them about the Lord, about his miracles and his teaching, as 
one who had received it from those who had seen with their 
own eyes the Word of Life, and it was all in perfect agree- 
ment with the Holy Scriptures.’° 

Of Polycarp’s works we possess only one piece of writing 
which he sent to the church at Philippi in Macedonia* in the 
year of the death of St Ignatius, together with the latter’s 
letters. The whole communication is interwoven with quota- 
tions from and allusions to the writings of the whole New 
Testament. Besides the first three Gospels and the Acts of 
the Apostles, almost all the Epistles of St Paul, the first 
Epistle of Peter, and the first Epistle of John are made use 
of.° The Gospel of John itself is not cited, yet even Holtz- 
mann concedes that ‘‘ from the appearance of the satellite 
(that is, the first Epistle of John) we can infer the existence 
of the complete sun.’’® 

The third authority at this time in Asia Minor is Papuzas, 
Bishop of Hierapolis in Lesser Phrygia, ‘‘a pupil of John, 
a friend of Polycarp, a man of the olden time.”’ He also 
can claim to have seen and heard, together with his teacher, 
John, many disciples of the Lord. ‘‘ From them,” he writes, 
** I found out what Andrew or Peter had said, or what Philip 
or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other of 
the disciples of the Lord had said.”® What he thus had 
‘* learned and had deeply impressed upon his memory ’’® from 
the most trustworthy sources, he compiled later in his work 
entitled Explanations of the Sayings of the Lord. Unfortu- 
nately we possess from this only small extracts, which 
Eusebius, the father of Church history, has preserved. 

Passing over the Gospel of John, the origin of which in 
Asia Minor, where it appeared, was moreover known, Papias 


1 [renzus, Adv. Heer., III, iii, 4; Eusebius, H. Z., v, 20, 24. 

2 [renzus, of. cit. 

3 Treneus, Ad Florinum in Eusebius, A. £., v. 20. 

4 See Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Polycarp, i, 629 (London, 
1885); Funk, PP. apost., I, xc ff.; Harnack, Chronologie der altchristl. 
Literatur, i, 384 ff.; Bardenhewer, Gesch. d. altkirchl. Literatur, i, 149. 

5 Funk, zd., 573; Bardenhewer, zd., 151; Boese, zd., 56 ff. 

6H. T. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der hist.-kritischen Etnleitung ins 
N. 7., 3rd ed., p. 469 (Freiburg, Mohr, 1892). 

7 [reneus, Adv. Her., V, xxxili, 4. 

8 Eusebius, A. £., iii, 39. 9 tbhid, 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 51 


gives in this work information about the synoptic Gospels. 
He makes use of the third of these, without referring to it 
by name.* But in regard to the origin of the other two, he 
goes into details, as follows: ‘‘ Mark, who had been an 
interpreter for Peter, wrote exactly all that Christ had said 
and done, so far as he recollected it. Not in its precise 
order certainly; for he himself had not heard the Lord, and 
also had not followed him as a disciple, but only later had 
accompanied Peter. The latter arranged his discourses with 
a view to the needs of his hearers, not as one who wished 
to present an orderly compilation of the utterances of the 
Lord. Hence Mark has made no mistake, since he noted 
down everything just as he recalled it, for he was intent on 
one thing only—to leave out nothing which he had heard, or 
in any point whatever to be guilty of falsehood... . 
Matthew, on the contrary, wrote down the utterances [of 
Jesus] in the Hebrew tongue, and on this account everyone 
translated them as best he could.’ 

From these words the critics have concluded that there was 
at first only a Hebrew, or rather an Aramaic, manuscript of 
Matthew, which contained merely a short collection of the 
discourses of Jesus. This compilation of his words was, 
later, made use of and enlarged by the separate Evangelists 
until there grew out of it the first three Gospels, to which was 
subsequently added the fourth—all of them being written in 
Greek. Now, by the adoption of this theory the apostolic 
origin of our Gospels would also certainly be established. 
At most, the testimony of Papias about Matthew would be 
shattered. But it will not do to play off a so-called primitive 
Gospel of Matthew against a final Gospel of Matthew with 
an appeal to Papias. The worthy Bishop of Hierapolis 
evidently wishes to say only that the original Hebrew 
Matthew, in contrast to the Greek Gospel of Mark, has not 
been wholly understood by some who were scarcely half 
acquainted with Hebrew, and ‘‘ everyone translated it as 
best he could.” That the synoptics have elaborated and 
enlarged a collection of sayings from a primitive Matthew 
Papias does not say. 

It was desired to infer the existence of a “collection of 
sayings’ from the fact that Papias designates the writings 
of Matthew as Logia (utterances), not as a Gospel. But he 
names the real Gospel of Mark in precisely the same way, 
and calls his own work also Explanations of the Logia of the 
Lord, and yet it was concerned with the discourses and deeds 
of Christ and with the Gospel in the broadest sense of the 
word. The Logia of Matthew, of which Papias speaks, are, 
therefore, not only ‘‘ sayings,” but words and deeds of the 
Lord, narratives and reports about the Lord—in short, the 


1 Holtzmann, /.c., p. 96. 2 Eusebius, d.c. 


52 Christ and tbe Critics 


Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew. Thus did 
Irenzeus’ and Eusebius? understand Papias, whose entire 
work they knew. From him, indeed, they wish to produce 
the proof that our Gospels, already in that “ ancient time,’’ 
were well known in Asia Minor and recognized as apostolic 
documents. 

In the Greek Church it was just the same. Aristides, a 
Christian philosopher of Athens, addressed to the Roman 
Emperor, Antoninus Pius, about the year a.p. 140,° a manu- 
script in defence of the Christians. The apologist refers in 
this to the Christian teaching with the remark: ‘‘ This 1s 
the teaching of that Gospel which has recently been pro- 
claimed, You also, if you read it, will perceive the force 
which it contains.”* Then Aristides concisely summarizes 
the principal events in the life of Jesus, and adds: All this 
can be learned ‘‘ from the book of the Christians.”° Several 
times more does this philosopher mention ‘‘ the writings” of 
the New Testament, which together constitute ‘* the evan- 
gelical Holy Scripture.”® Aristides, therefore, before the 
pagan emperor and the great Roman public, is able to 
appeal to the fact that the Christians possess several original 
sources of history, which they call a Gospel, or evangelical 
Holy Scriptures, and what he recounts of these agrees com- 
pletely with the essential, fundamental characteristics of our 
present Gospels. 

About ten years later, the Roman philosopher, Justin 
(A.D. 100-165), composed two works in defence of the Chris- 
tian religion, as well as a controversial pamphlet, entitled 
A Dialogue with the Jew Trypho. In the first Apology,’ 
which he presented to the Emperor in Rome, Justin mentions 
The Memoirs of the Apostles, called Gospels,* and certifies 
that ‘‘ these memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the 
Prophets” are read aloud on Sunday at the divine service of 
the Christians.? In the Dialogue also he asserts that these 
memoirs were composed by the ‘‘ Apostles and disciples of 
Christa he 

In view of the fact that he uses the plural here both times, 
he evidently speaks of two ‘‘ Apostles”? (Matthew and John), 
and of two ‘‘ disciples” (Mark and Luke)—that is to say, 

1 Adv. Her., V, xxxili, 4. aid Ler be XS1V, O 

3 Cf. Zahn’s Porschungen zur Geschichte des N. T. Kanons, V, 268- 
280. Seeberg on Aristides’ Apology; Bardenhewer, of. czt., ii, 181 ff. 

4 Rendel Harris, The Apology of Aristides, xvii, p. 36 (Cambridge, 
epg Xvi, Pp. 5. Sai RV, Vexvis 35 <yiin ae 

7 Written after 148: see Veil, Justinus der Phil. und Mart. Recht fertt- 
gung des Christentums, xxxi; Harnack, Chrgnologie der altchristl. 
Literatur, i, 278; Bardenhewer, Geschichte des altkirchlichen Literatur, 
i a Pala pia Prima. n. 66. (The quotations are taken from Migne.) 

9 tbid., n. 67. 10 Dialog. n. 103. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 53 


of all four Evangelists. Moreover, a little before this, he had 
quoted in one and the same sentence passages from all four 
Gospels. From the first three especially he quotes so often 
that even the most outspoken rationalists concede that he 
was in possession of our synoptic Gospels.* Traces of the 
Gospel of John we find less frequently in Justin, yet several 
passages appear there which can be taken only from him.® 

Hilgenfeld remarks in regard to this: ‘‘It is difficult to 
deny even the use (by Justin) of the Gospel of John.’ 
Harnack expresses a similar opinion: ‘‘ I will not deny that 
Justin held the Fourth Gospel to have been written by the 
Apostle John, and his judgement in regard to the origin of 
the Apocalypse of the Twelve Apostles seems to me also to 
be of great importance for the Gospel.” Loisy also finds 
that the christology of Justin is thoroughly Johannine, and 
that the apologist makes use of this Gospel as an authority 
of the same value as the Synoptics.° 

During the latter half of the second century heresies 
increased in number as well as, to a remarkable degree, the 
apocryphal Gospels of the heretics. Accordingly, the eccle- 
siastical writers were obliged to defend the genuine apostolic 
writings much more decidedly and positively. From their 
testimony we see not only that the four canonical Gospels 
were then in existence, and were ascribed to the well-known 
Apostles and their pupils, but also that they existed exactly 
in the textual form and contents in which they still remain 
to-day. Let us again select our authorities from different 
provinces of the Church, so that the universality of the 
Christian faith in the Gospels may appear more clearly. 

First of all, we come to the Canon of the Roman Church— 
that is to say, the catalogue of the sacred writings which 
were attributed to the Prophets and Apostles, and for that 
reason could be read aloud at divine service. Such a cata- 
logue, originating about the year A.D. 170, was discovered 
by the distinguished scholar, Muratori, in the Ambrosiana in 
Milan,’ and since then has been reprinted, dated and dis- 
cussed over and over again.® It is called, therefore, the 
Muratorian Fragment. Among the books of the New Testa- 
ment which are allowed in the ‘Catholic Church,’’ the 
Canon of Muratori names four and only four Gospels— 


1 Dialog. n. 88. 

° Volkmar, Der Ursprung unserer Evangelien, 91 (Ztirich, 1866). 

3 Cf. Boese, Glaubwirdigkett unserer Evangelien, 33 ff.; Cornely, 
Introductio, i111, 2nd ed., 220 ff.; Alfred Leonard Feder, S.J., /ustins 
des Martyrers Lehre von Jesus Christus (Freiburg, 1906). 

4 Einleitung ins N. T., 66. 5 Harnack, Chronologie, i, 674. 

6 Le Quatriéme Evangtle (193), 14. 

7 Antiqguttates ttalice medii evi, iii, 854 (Milan, 1740). 

8 We follow the text of Tregelles’s facsimile Muratorian Canon 
(Oxford, 1867). 


54 Christ and the Critics 


namely, those which are still called the canonical ones. On 
the contrary, another book, the so-called Shepherd, is re- 
jected, because it ‘‘ was first written recently, in our own 
time, under the pontificate of Pius [the First] in Rome, by 
Hermas, the brother of the aforesaid Bishop,” who reigned 
from A.D. 142-157. 

Soon after the year A.D. 150, therefore, in contradistinction 
to the Shepherd of Hermas, which had been published 
‘“recently and in our own time,” the Gospels were recog- 
nized as writings of earlier times. But works of the second 
century certainly were not called so. The Gospels, there- 
fore, were in use in Rome at the very latest about the year 
A.D. 100, and, moreover, were already then all united together 
in one harmonious whole, consisting of four books. ‘‘ For,” 
remarks the Canon, ‘‘ although different teachings are pre- 
sented in the separate books of the Gospels, yet this variety 
does no harm to the faith of believers, because all that the 
separate Gospels contain concerning the birth of the Lord, 
his sufferings and his resurrection, his life with his disciples 
and his second coming, is revealed by one spirit of God.”?} 

The more precise information contained in the Muratorian 
Canon regarding the authors of the first two Gospels we do 
not know, because the fragment breaks off at this place. 
There can, however, be no doubt that it ascribes these 
Gospels, in accordance with the universal tradition of the 
time, to Matthew and Mark. The third it attributes ex- 
pressly to Luke, the physician and companion of Paul, and 
the fourth to ‘‘ John, of the number of the disciples.” 

Soon after this, Tertullian (born A.D. 160), lived and wrote 
in Africa, first as a Catholic and later as an adherent of the 
Montanist heresy. His learned works are entirely interwoven 
with texts from the Gospels, and from all his citations we 
see that our Gospels were in his possession actually in their 
precise and complete form. In fact, they could be recon- 
structed for the most part out of Tertullian’s writings, so that 
a German scholar, Rénsch, was really able to write a book 
with the significant title: The New Testament of Tertullian; 
reconstructed as perfectly as possible from his Writings 
(Leipzig, 1871). 

Tertullian emphasizes frequently and decidedly the apos- 
tolic origin of the Gospels. In his work against Marcion, 
who had produced a false Gospel of Luke, he says: ‘‘ We 
affirm, first of all, that the source of proof which the Gospels 
furnish indicates the Apostles as their authors. . . . I main- 
tain that this Gospel of Luke existed, from the very beginning 
of its publication, in the apostolic churches and in all those 
which were united with them through a common bond of 
faith, while that of Marcion was unknown to most of the 


1 Zahn’s reconstructed Muratorian Fragment. See Geschichte, ii, 139. 


The Gennineness of the Gospels 55 


congregations, and, if known to any, was bitterly condemned. 
The same authority of the apostolic churches supports also 
the other Gospels, which we possess through them and after 
them—namely, the Gospels of John and Matthew, as well as 
the Gospel of Mark, which is designated as that of Peter, 
whose interpreter Mark was. Similarly, the Gospel composed 
-by Luke is wont to be ascribed to Paul. What their pupils 
have published the prestige of the masters preserves.””* 

Contemporaneously with Tertullian there taught in Egypt 
Clement of Alexandria (born about a.p. 150). His youth, 
as he himself says, went back to the first successors of the 
Apostles. His teacher, Pantzenus, was actually a pupil of 
those very old men who had known and heard the Apostles.? 
Appealing to the testimony of these elders, Clement first 
mentions the formation of the three synoptic Gospels as the 
work of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and then adds that John 
wrote the last of all; for when he (John) had remarked that 
in the other Gospels it is rather the physical side of the mani- 
festation of Jesus that is presented, he, at the solicitation of 
his friends, and moved by the Spirit of God, wrote a spiritual 
Gospel. ? 

This statement of facts is entirely confirmed by Ireneus of 
Lyons, who wrote, between the years A.D. 174-189, his learned 
work entitled Against Heresies, in which he gives his opinion 
of the Gospels with great clearness, thoroughness and com- 
pleteness. He was so familiar with them that their words 
flow spontaneously from his pen at every opportunity. From 
each of the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John he quotes 
nearly a hundred passages, and from Mark about a dozen. 
Some of these are of considerable extent, and he also gives 
repeatedly exhaustive reports about the contents of the 
Gospels. His citations and records would, as in the case 
of Tertullian, make it possible to reconstruct a great part of 
the Gospels from his work alone. A comparison between the 
review of the Gospels made by Irenzeus and that of the 
editions of to-day reveals the incontestable fact that the great 
Bishop of Lyons used and commented on our Gospels actually 
text by text. 

Of their origin he relates the following: ‘‘ Matthew pub- 
lished his Gospel among the Hebrews, and in their language, 
at the time when Peter and Paul were preaching the glad 
tidings in Rome and founding the Church there. After their 
decease, Mark also, the pupil and interpreter of Peter, has 
given us what had been preached by Peter. Luke, however, 
a companion of Paul, has chronicled in his work the Gospel 


1 Tertullian, Adv. Marcion., IV, ii, 4, 5. 
= Ciem. Alex., Stromat., i, 1; Hypot. in Eusebius, 7. £., v, 11, 
vi, 


F3; 
3’ Eusebius, A. £., vi, 14. 


56 Christ and the Critics 


as it was preached by that Apostle. After that, John, the 
disciple of the Lord, who reclined upon his breast, published 
his Gospel also while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia.”? 

Far, however, from presenting his judgement about the 
apostolic origin of the Gospels as his own view only, Irenzeus 
appeals to a threefold guarantee for its truthfulness. First, 
he is able to assert that he is uttering only the universal 
faith of the Church of his time ;? and he knew what this faith 
was better than anyone else. Born and instructed in Asia 
Minor, he had also lived in Rome for a long time, and com- 
pleted his education there; and, finally, had also become 
acquainted with the Church in France. Everywhere he had 
investigated the doctrines of the Church with such an intense 
desire for knowledge that Tertullian had already honoured 
him with the title: Omnium doctrinarum curiosissimus ex- 
plorator.* His statements about the universal belief at that 
time in the authenticity of the Gospels are, therefore, indis- 
putable. 

Irenzus, however, goes further than the views of his con- 
temporaries in the way of proof, and collects the reports of 
the primitive ecclesiastical authorities almost up to the begin- 
ning of Christianity. He tests every question in the light of 
this oldest tradition, as he assures us very positively : ‘‘ When 
a dispute arises over a question of any importance, must one 
not go back to the most ancient churches in which the Apostles 
have lived, and learn from them in regard to the affair under 
consideration what is certain and well known? And even if 
the Apostles had left us no writings, would not we have 
been obliged to hold to the guiding line of the traditions 
which they bequeathed to those to whom they entrusted the 
churches?”* Above all, he wishes to have the question of the 
Gospels settled by ancient tradition, and he accompanies his 
information about the origin of the Gospels with the oft 
repeated reference to the importance of tradition, from which 
we ought not to depart; and Irenzus finds this information 
precisely in the men and writings of early Christian times. 

Moreover, he can appeal to these also from his own ex- 
perience, His teacher and predecessor in office in the 
bishopric of Lyons, the saintly Pothinus, died in a.p. 177 
a martyr’s death® as an old man of ninety years. He could, 
therefore, give to his eager pupils the most precise informa- 
tion about the proceedings in the Church as far back as the 
first century. Furthermore, before Irenzus had come to 
France, he had enjoyed in his youth in Asia Minor the in- 
struction and intimacy of several pupils of John. Again and 


1 Adv. Her., Mil, i, 1. Cf. Gutjahr, Dze Glaubwiirdigkett des 
Irendischen Zeugnisses tiber die Abfassung des 4 kan. Evangeliums 
(Graz, 1904). 

2 Te GL eke 3 Adv, Valentinum, v. 

4 Irenaus, Adv, Her., III, iv, 1, § Eusebius, 7. Z., v, 5. 


The Gennineness of the Gospels 57 


again he refers to their testimony.! In important points of 
doctrine he appeals expressly to them: ‘‘ As those bishops 
remember, who have seen John, the disciple of the Lord ;? 

As they testify, who have seen John face to face ;% 
: As the Gospel and all the oldest Christians testify, 
who have met John, the disciple of the Lord, and who assure 
us that John has imparted this to them.’’* 

The deepest and most lasting impression had been made 
upon the youthful Irenzeus by Polycarp, the old pupil of John 
in the bishopric of Smyrna. Polycarp is always present to 
his memory, and he sees him as he explained to him Chris- 
tian truth, and as he had spoken of his intimate friendship 
with the beloved disciple and other disciples of the Lord; and 
had quoted their words.° Nothing had imprinted itself upon 
his mind and heart so strongly and immovably as these im- 
pressions received in youth from Polycarp.® He reminds his 
former fellow-student, Florinus, who was about to fall into 
the Valentinian heresy, of this teacher whom they had both 
had in Smyrna: ‘‘ In the sight of God I can testify that this 
blessed, apostolic bishop, if he had heard anything of this 
sort [the heresy], would have cried aloud, stopped his ears, 
and exclaimed, as he was wont to do: ‘O good God, for 
what times hast thou preserved me, that I must experience 
this !’ and he would have fled from the place where, sitting or 
standing, he had heard such things.”” 

The reason, however, why Irenzeus always finds his sup- 
port in Polycarp and the other bishops in Asia Minor in the 
matter of the Gospels, as well as in his entire doctrinal system, 
lies in the fact that they were pupils of John, and that the 
“ oldest’? who had transmitted the faith to him “ had been 
the pupils of the Apostles,* had gone to school to the 
Apostles, and had remained faithful to their teachings.’’® 

Thus the latest witnesses whom we appeal to for the genu- 
ineness of the Gospels are still, as it were, borne upon the 
shoulders of the pupils of the Apostles; and their utterances 
can be traced back, in connection with the older testimony 
which had preceded them, even into apostolic times. From 
Clement of Alexandria through Pantznus to the Alexandrian 
disciples of the Apostles; from Irenzus through Polycarp 
and the other apostolic pupils in Asia Minor to ‘‘ John and 


1 Funk, Opera PP. apost., anded., i, 378-389; Presbyterorum reliquie 
ab lren@o servate. 


PPAAD Te aer., V, XXX11, 3: 

1 f efapp MYO G'S @ ae 

Stic LI xx, e. 

5 Irenzeus, Ad Florin. in Eusebius, ZH. £., v, 20. 

6 thid, 7 tbhid, 

8 Des hl. Irendus Schrift... herausgegeben von Karapet Ter- 


Mekerttschian u. Erwand Ter-Minassiantz, in Zexte und Unter- 
suchungen, xxxi, 1. Heft, p. 26 (Leipzig, 1907). 
9 Irenzus, Adv, Her., v, 20. 


58 Christ and the Critics 


the others who had seen the Lord ”’; from Irenzeus to Papias, 
‘“the man of antiquity,” who had himself sat at the feet of 
John and other disciples of Jesus; from Ignatius and his 
circle of friends directly into the times of the Apostles; from 
the most ancient Roman canon, which we still possess, 
through Justin and Aristides to Clement, the successor of the 
Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, who had preached 
in Rome the Gospel, which their listeners, Mark and Luke, 
had then written down—these and many other lines of 
antiquity, which cross and recross, all lead us in an unbroken 
course back to the origin of the Gospels themselves. It 1s, 
however, conceded by all our opponents that the Gospels 
were considered genuine by Irenzeus, Tertullian and Clement 
of Alexandria down to Origen, Eusebius and the whole 
theology of early times. We come, therefore, to the last 
proof for the apostolic origin of the historical books of the 
New Testament—viz. : 


3. The Universal Church Tradition. 


The concordant witnesses of early Christian literature do not 
give merely their own personal views concerning the Gospels. 
The declaration of Irenzus, Tertullian and Clement of Alex- 
andria and the Muratorian Fragment show that they regard 
their opinions as an expression of the universal faith of the 
Church. The whole Church ascribes the authorship of the four 
Gospels to the apostolic men—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 
In Alexandria, in Carthage, in Rome, Lyons, Asia Minor and 
Greece this conviction is met with everywhere and among all. 

According to evidence, therefore, after the year A.D. 150 beltef 
in the authenticity of the Gospels is universal in the Church. 
Now this universal faith must go back to a genuine fact. It 
would be truly a miracle of mystification and an unheard-of 
falsification of history, if, from fifty to a hundred years after 
the Apostles, such a unanimous tradition, recognized alike by 
friend and foe, could be formed if it had not corresponded to 
reality. 

To this may be added another consideration of great 
weight. The above mentioned universal belief of the Church 
in the origin of the Gospels appeals to apostolic tradition, 
and to the teaching and express testimony of the Apostles 
and the apostolic era. Nothing is clearer and more evident 
than this from the literature of the second century. 

Origen, for example (born A.D. 185), sums up the result of 
this in the following concise words: ‘‘I have learned from 
tradition that the four Gospels, recognized without contra- 
diction by the whole Church of God throughout the world, 
were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”! Clement 


1 Comment, in Matt. Prolog. 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 59 


of Alexandria, the great teacher of Origen, repudiates indig- 
nantly any appeal to the apocryphal Gospels, precisely 
because they are not recognized as apostolic by hereditary 
tradition.+ In writing to the followers of Marcion, Tertullian 
lays stress upon the statute of limitation of the canonical 
Gospels, since their authenticity is supported by the testimony 
of the apostolic Church, and this again rests on the guarantee 
of the Apostles themselves.? 

That Irenzeus continually appeals to the old apostolic tradi- 
tion for the authenticity of the Gospels has been already 
shown. The author of the Muratorian Fragment also ex- 
presses the Church principle with the utmost clearness : ‘‘ No 
writing, however old and venerable it may be, may be con- 
sidered as sacred or canonical unless it is proven to be 
apostolic.” 

Apostolicity is, therefore, made the principle of testing the 
New Testament books. The test of apostolicity itself, how- 
ever, was the apostolic tradition. Transmitted or not, that 
was, in every case and in regard to every single book and in 
all the churches, the decisive question. However Christian in 
spirit the contents of a book might be; however old it was; 
however worthy of esteem its author; and though upon its 
title page might stand the name of an Apostle—all that was 
useless if the writing in question was not proven to be 
apostolic by the unbroken chain of Church tradition. 

When the Syrian bishop, Serapion, learned that in a corner 
of his diocese the apocryphal Gospel of Peter was accepted 
as genuine, he forbade it with the severe reproof : ‘‘ Brothers, 
we accept Peter and the other Apostles as we accept Christ; 
but whatever falsely bears their names we, as being well- 
informed, repudiate, since we know that no such book has 
been handed down to us.’ 

Even documents really written by Apostles were rejected 
by some individual churches, so long as the universal tradi- 
tion in regard to them was not established beyond a doubt. 
And thus it came to pass that some apostolic Epistles, as well 
as the Apocalypse of St. John, were not at once in all the 
churches adopted and considered as part of the Bible. The 
apostolic tradition in regard to them had to be ascertained 
before their authenticity could be recognized. 

Now, the Gospels were accepted as apostolic in the years 
A.D. 130-170. So far as the memory of teachers in the year 
A.D. 170 could go back, the genuineness of the four Gospels 
had been always firmly established on the basis of apostolic 
tradition. The men, however, from whose hands the genera- 
tion of that time had received this tradition had themselves 
received it directly from the Apostles and the pupils of the 


1 Stromat., iii, 13. 2 Tertullian, Adv. Marc., iv, 4, 5. 
Se Rusebius, 2.) 2., vij 12, 3; 


60 Christ and the Critics 


Apostles. The chain between the first and second century, 
between apostolic and post-apostolic tradition, is, therefore, 
complete. Link by link, it stretches back to the days when 
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their books. The 
Gospels must be apostolic. 

The apostolic tradition originated and moreover maintained 
itself under such strict measures and precautionary rules that 
fraud and deception are simply inconceivable. 

The apostolic authors usually addressed their writings to 
well-defined circles, parishes, or individuals. Matthew wrote 
for the Christian communities in Palestine; Mark for the 


Church in Rome; Paul intended his Epistles for the ‘‘ saints 
in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Rome”... or ‘‘ for the Church 
in Corinth, in Thessalonica, in Galatia’’ ... or “for Titus, 


Timothy or Philemon.” 

In order to prevent those thus addressed from having any 
doubt about the origin of their writings, the authors added 
their own signatures (1 Cor. xvi, 21; Col. iv, 18), and some- 
times even called attention especially to the character of the 
written letters (Gal. vi, 11; 2 Thess. ili, 17). If they did not 
give these writings personally to those addressed, they chose 
as the bearers of them thoroughly reliable messengers, whom 
they provided, when necessary, with personal letters of intro- 
duction. In this way the first Epistle of St John is a voucher 
for the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Sometimes the 
severest threats are made against those who should alter any- 
thing in the text thus sent (Apoc. xxii, 18 ff.). In general the 
Apostles themselves took great pains to preserve intact their 
written and oral teaching (Gal. 1, 7 ff. ; 2 Thess. ti, 2, 15). 

Under their supervision the New Testament writings were 
still further circulated by the churches originally addressed. 
Many writers of the sacred books were still living at the 
time when their writings, and especially the Gospels, had 
become already wellnigh the common property of the entire 
Church. A mistake about the origin of the Gospels was, 
therefore, among the contemporaries of the Evangelists, im- 
possible. 

The succeeding generations of Christendom also watched 
over this inherited treasure with an equally great and pains- 
taking anxiety and care. The copies of the original apostolic 
autographs were, then, recognized as such only if there was 
impressed upon them the attestation of those Christian 
churches or persons who had received them from the 
Apostles.1. This attestation was verified, according to the 
procedure common in apostolic times, by means of its own 
credentials. Even the genuineness of the oldest writings of 
the Fathers had to be vouched for in this way. The church 
of Philippi had the collection of the letters of St Ignatius 


1 Tertullian, Adv. Marc., iv, 4. 





The Genuineness of the Gospels 61 


confirmed and sealed only by Polycarp, the friend of the 
disciple of John from Antioch.* Irenzeus conjures the copyist 
of one of his books to compare the copy with the original 
conscientiously, and also to enclose with it this confirmation. ? 
So much the more, then, did they watch over the origin and 
preservation in their original form of the apostolic writings, 
which enjoyed an incomparably higher esteem and importance 
in the Church than the most venerable writings of the Fathers. 
If, however, doubts did arise about the authenticity of any 
writing, of even of any single text in it, recourse was had to the 
ancient copies of the Apostles, which were preserved as long 
as possible. Tertullian still admonishes the heretical teachers : 
‘“Go through the apostolic churches, in which the profes- 
sional chairs of the Apostles still stand, wherein their 
authentic writings themselves are still read—those writings 
in which the voice of each Apostle still leaves its echoes, and 
from the pages of which his face looks out again upon us.’’? 

In addition to all this, the manuscripts of every church 
were subjected to a continual twofold control—one, official, 
by the superintendents ; the other, public, by the faithful. 

The guardianship of the sacred books was made the official 
duty of the bishops and priests, and the copies intended for 
divine service were preserved at their residences.* Under 
their supervision, the readers—a special class of clerics— 
guarded the treasure of the sacred scriptures ;° and it was 
the duty of these men in case of necessity to defend them 
with their lives. Whoever handed over the sacred books to 
the pagans was regarded as an apostate and excluded from 
the Church.® Also the falsification of the Bible was visited 
with the severest penalties. A bishop of Asia Minor who, 
out of imprudent zeal, had composed the Acts of Paul and 
Thekla, and ascribed the work to the Apostle to the Gentiles, 
was removed from office.7?| The apostolic Canon (60 or 59), 
which, as regards its contents, belongs still to the second 
century, orders the removal from office of anyone who allows 
the forbidden writings to be read aloud as sacred, ‘‘ to the 
ruin of the clergy and people.’’® 

The Christian people, for their part, were very familiar 
with the Holy Scriptures. These were read to them publicly 

1 Polycarp, Zp. ad Phil pp., iii and xiii. 

# Irenzus, in Eusebius, 2. £., V, xxxii, 2. 

> Tertullian, De. pr@scr:i, Xxxvi, 

4 Irenzxus, Adv. Her., iv, 32. 

5 Justin, Apolog., 1, 67. 

6 Augustine, De Baptismo, vii, 2. 

? Tertullian, De Baptismo, xvii. 

®Can. Avost.,-Ed. Hardouin, Acfa Concil., i, 23. C/. Funk, Das 
achte Buch der apost. Konstitutionen und verwandte Schriften; Das 
Testament unseres Herrn u. die verwandten Schriften in Forschungen 


zur christ, Literatur u. Dogmengesch., ii, 179 ff. (Ehrhard-Kirsch, 
Mainz, 1901). 


62 Christ and the Critics 


at divine service. Justin mentions? particularly that every 
Sunday there are brought out before the eyes of the congre- 
gations by the readers ‘‘ the memoirs of the Apostles, called 
Gospels.’’ Thus the people were well acquainted with their 
contents and even with the text; and owing to their un- 
bounded veneration for them they spied out with argus eyes 
every innovation in regard to the transmitted Scriptures. The 
churches also mutually supervised each other by means of the 
constant and intimate intercourse which prevailed between 
them, especially between mother and daughter churches, and 
all important elections, decrees and events were communi- 
cated to each other. How great the sensation would have 
been if any one church had palmed off apocryphal writings 
as apostolic, or even merely changed the text of an apostolic 
manuscript. 

The attempt in some churches to associate the Epistles of 
Barnabas and Clement or the third Epistle to the Corinthians 
with the apostolic books met with a veritable storm of indig- 
nation.* Indeed, in the age of SS Augustine and Jerome, 
the people of one province rose as one man in protest when 
a bishop in the biblical story of Jonas had the name of a 
plant translated as “ivy ’’ instead of, as formerly, “a gourd.”’ 
Nor did the disturbance cease until the gourd had once more 
replaced the ivy in the text.* 

Thus the universal Church tradition is not only a living 
proof of the genuineness of the sacred books, but also an 
incontrovertible guarantee of their integrity. 





Let us recapitulate. The Gospels are genuine. 

The apocryphal as well as the canonical Gospels, the non- 
ecclesiastical teachers and the ecclesiastical literature of the 
earliest times, and the non-christian as well as the universal 
Church tradition, all testify to the great age and the apos- 
tolic origin of our Gospel writings. Whoever is not willing 
to recognize this gigantic, critically indisputable body of proof 
as compelling, must, with much more reason, reject all the 
profane sources of history of ancient times, and therewith 
abolish history itself. To deny the authenticity of the 
Gospels is, therefore, a highly uncritical and unhistoric 
procedure. 

All the Gospels are genuine. 

Modern liberal criticism, compelled by the evidence of 
facts, has finally consented to recognize the authenticity of 
the three synoptic Gospels. Those who still contest it out 


1 Tertullian, De prescr., xxxvi; Justin, Apol., i, 67; 1 Thess. v, 27; 
Col. iv, 16. 

2A pol., 1, 66, 67. 

3 Zahn, Geschichte des neutest. Kanons, i, 326 ff. 

4 Augustine, Zp. 104, al. 88; Jerome, ZA. 112, al. 89, n. 21 ff. 





The Genuineness of the Gospels 63 


of a morbid desire to criticize have at most a claim to the 
sincere sympathy of their colleagues. On the other hand, the 
majority of liberal Bible critics still persist in disputing the 
Johannine origin of the Fourth Gospel. But this negative 
attitude of many critics should not intimidate us. There was 
a time—and it lies only a little way behind us—when men 
declared much more loudly and triumphantly that the un- 
authenticity of the Synoptics was manifestly and for ever 
proven. Yet a few years passed, and the whole proud strong- 
hold of the enemies of revelation was overthrown, and 
already the leader of the liberal school announces that the 
positions still remaining will, one after another, also fall, 
acknowledging that the ancient tradition was right. 

This event, as regards the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, 
ought to be realized all the sooner for the reason that the argu- 
ments of the enemy stand in inverse ratio to his certainty of 
victory. It is, above all, significant that this hostile criticism 
appeals only to internal evidences, on which alone reliance 
can seldom or never be placed. Some, like Otto Schmiedel, 
reject this Gospel on account of its ‘‘ difference from the 
Synoptics.’’? Others, on the contrary, like Oscar Holtzmann, 
condemn it because its narratives ‘‘ are, in a literary sense, 
dependent on similar passages in the first three Gospels, and 
therefore certainly none of the twelve Apostles has written the 
Gospel of John.’’? But while Oscar Holtzmann is always sus- 
pecting John’s dependence on the Synoptics, Harnack* says : 
‘* There is some indication that John has read Luke, but more 
than that cannot be said.” But neither dependence on the 
Synoptics nor difference from them, so far as these really 
exist, contradict the Johannine authorship. These difficulties 
could at most be considered in a study of the credibility of 
this Gospel. Whether they have any foundation or not, this 
is not the place to investigate them. That should be done 
rather in connection with an inquiry into the trustworthiness 
of the Johannine Gospel. 

In reality, all the prejudices against the genuineness of 
John’s Gospel proceed, from first to last, from the alleged 
incredibility of its contents. The doubts of the Johannine 
origin of this document are not based upon ‘‘ positive observa- 
tion of the text and positive far-reaching knowledge of tradi- 
tion . . . but the representatives of such hypotheses were 
united only in the negative decision that a personal disciple 
could not have written the book, since its contents are held 
to be incredible for various reasons, partly historical, partly 
psychological, partly philosophical and partly dogmatic.’’® 

1 Harnack, Chronologie der altchristl, Literatur, 1, x ff. 

2 Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 18 (Tiitbingen, 1906). 

3 Christus, 33 (Berlin, 1903). 4 Lukas der Arat, 159. 


® Zahn, Realenzyklopadie fiir protestantische Theologie, ix, 280 
(3rd ed.). 


64 Christ and the Critics 


The genuineness of John’s Gospel can, therefore, be doubted 
only in so far as its credibility is doubtful. That the latter is 
not the case will be shown later. Meanwhile, the external 
evidence for the Johannine authorship is for us a guarantee 
that the internal proofs, derived from the Gospel, also cannot 
testify against its authenticity. If this is vouched for by the 
unanimous, universally well-informed external tradition, then 
a conflict between external and inner criticism is impossible. 
Otherwise, it would be truly an unheard of and unique 
phenomenon in the history of literature. 

But, as appears from the investigation which we have just 
made, the ancient tradition of the Church testifies to the 
genuineness of the Fourth Gospel with the same unanimity as 
it does to that of the other three. And this tradition shows 
itself to be even more directly and clearly informed about the 
origin of the Fourth Gospel than about that of the synoptic 
ones. John, the author in dispute, lived considerably longer 
than the synoptic writers, and, even at the close of the 
first century, was still imparting to his pupils information, 
which these in turn transmitted to us, partly directly, partly 
through their disciple Irenzeus. 

One single consideration in favour of the claim of this 
negative criticism is derived from the testimony of the 
disciples of John. According to Eusebius, Papias stated that 
there had lived in Asia Minor, contemporaneously with the 
Apostle John, a presbyter of the same name.! Of course, the 
critics did not hesitate for a moment to claim that this bishop 
was the teacher of Papias and the author of the Gospel. 

But Eusebius himself admits that this supposition that 
another John, besides the Apostle, lived in Asia Minor is 
based merely upon the mentioning of the name of John twice 
in the preface of the work of Papias. It is clear how doubtful 
such a conclusion is. ‘‘ John the Presbyter appears to be, 
on the whole, an immature creation of critical necessity 
and the imperfect knowledge of Eusebius.’’? Without doubt 
John the Presbyter is identical with the Apostle of the same 
name.® 

But even if the existence of this ‘‘ double” of John, in the 
writing of Papias, were proved, the question would still at 
once present itself whether he, or the Apostle, had instructed 
Papias and had written the Gospel. Now it is Eusebius 
himself who indicates Papias as a hearer of the theologian 
and Apostle John, and Ireneus cites the latter as an 
Evangelist, with constant reference to his teacher, Poly- 
carp, who was also a pupil of John. This alone would be 
sufficient to establish the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel. 


1 Eusebius, AH. £., ili, 39. 2 Zahn, op. cit., 284. 
3 Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altchristl, Literatur, i, 538 ff.; Lepin, 
Lorigine du ame Evangztle, 87 ff. (Paris, 1907). 


The Genuineness of the Gospels 65 


A thorough treatment of the Johannine question could be 
given only in a monograph devoted exclusively to it; but, 
apart from the previously mentioned Protestant authors, the 
reader is referred to the investigations and representations of 
Schanz,! Cornely,? Fillion,* Batiffol,t Knabenbauer,® Mange- 
not,® Fouard,’ Calmes,® Belser,? Lepin,!® E. Lahousse,1! 
Dausch,!? and L. Murillo.?% 

The Gospels are genuine in the essential form of their text 
as we still possess it. Our text of the Gospels is essentially 
that of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Tatian, 
Syrus Sinaiticus, Irenzeeus and Justin—in fact, that of the 
whole second century. 

And the Gospels of the second century are in every respect 
identical with those of the pupils of the Apostles and of the 
Apostles themselves. Whoever, therefore, denies the essential 
integrity of the Gospels is reduced to one of two alternatives : 
either to assume that all those illustrious men of the second 
century were deceivers, since they claim to have received these 
Gospels from the first century; or else to assert that the 
Church authorities of the first century betrayed the Apostles 
and their pupils, since they falsified the texts of the Gospels 
almost as soon as they appeared, and handed them down in 
that form to their successors. Both these alternatives are 
evidently incorrect. The universal tradition of the Church 
and criticism of the text both give us the vital proof that 
the Gospels (some unimportant and unavoidable variations 
excepted) have been transmitted to us from generation to 
generation unimpaired. 


Kommentar uber das Evangelium des hl. Johannes (Tiibingen, 188s). 
Historica et critica Introductio, ili, ed. altera (Paris, 1897). 
Evangile selon S Jean (Paris, 1887). 
Six legons sur les Evangtles, ame ed. (Paris, 1892). 
Commentarius in Ev. secundum Joannem (Paris, 1808). 
Dictionnaire de la Brble, iii, 1167 ff. (Paris, 1903). 
Saint Jean et la fin de Vége apostolique. 

8 L’évangile selon S Jean, 1904; also L. Fonck in Zettschrijt fir kath. 
Théologie, 28th year (Innsbruck, 1904), pp. 545-570. 

8 Das Evangelium des hl. Johannes, also EHinlettung in d, N. T., i, 
259-368 (Freiburg, 1go1). 

10 Z’origine du game Evangile; La valeur historique du ame Evangile. 

ll Le probléme Johannique (Bruxelles, 1908). 

12 Das Johannes-Evang. (Minster 1. W., 1909). 

13 San Juan, Estudio critico-exegetico, 9-135 (Barcelona, 1908). 


JI Ha PrP WON 


CHAPTER II | 
THE CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPELS 


I.—THEIR CREDIBILITY DISPUTED. 


HE result of the investigations which we have 

-thus far made is that the Gospels bearing the 

names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are 

the work of apostolic hands, The problem of the 

credibility of the Gospel history is thus brought 
nearer to its solution. Quite apart from the question of 
inspiration, the Christian Church saw, from earliest times, in 
the apostolic origin of the historical books of the New 
Testament the scientific guarantee that everything related in 
them is true, reliable and credible. 

‘‘ This conviction,” writes Irenzus, ‘‘is so strong that 
even heretics join in defending the Gospels, and everyone 
proceeds to strengthen his doctrine by appealing to them.” 
As often as the heretics attack the Christian faith, they take 
refuge, first, in the canonical Gospels, and, later, in the 
apocryphal ones, which must to some extent have been based 
upon the apostolic Gospels. No doctrine could then be 
successfully defended otherwise than by its real or pretended 
agreement with the Gospel. Even in defending their posi- 
tions against the orthodoxy of the Church the heretics 
assumed, as a matter of course, that the Catholic teachers 
would also appeal to the Gospels. The rejection of the testi- 
mony of the Gospels would, of course, have blunted the 
Catholics’ weapons; hence, since the heretical teachers recog- 
nized the right to appeal to the Gospels, they prove clearly 
how firmly convinced both sides were of the credibility of the 
Gospel accounts. 

If ever a sect, like the Alogi, made assertions to the con- 
trary, we may be sure in advance that it was already outside 
the pale of the Christian confession. 

It is plain that the non-christians were obliged to attack 
the contents of the Gospel as being unhistorical. The pagan 
polemical writers—Celsus, Lucian, Porphyrius and Julian the 
Apostate, like the Talmudists and Rabbis of the whole of 
non-christian Judaism—attribute the Gospel narratives, for 
the most part, to deception. 

They found willing pupils within the Christian Church first 
among the older rationalists of the eighteenth century. The 
whole superficial philosophy of that century tended to sever 


1 Adv. Her., Ill, xi, 7. 
66 


The Credibility of the Gospels 67 


the connection between nature and revelation, and between 
history and the truths of reason. 

It considered true only that which it called ‘‘ natural” and 
‘‘ rational.” Nature and reason were regarded as the only 
great, eternal and unchangeable facts. That age, influenced 
by the teachings of Rousseau, believed that man has within 
his reason all that he needs for time and eternity, and that he 
has only to develop himself ‘‘ according to nature” in order 
to realize the ideal of humanity. A divine revelation, or, 
indeed, anything supernatural, is neither desirable nor pos- 
sible. Moreover, this conception of the world had no more 
need of history. An historical event was neither a product of 
reason nor of nature; yet it held within itself nothing that was 
not already contained in reason and nature. 

Thus did rationalism sunder the bond uniting religion and 
revelation, and that between natural religion and revealed 
religion. Every ‘‘ historical” or ‘‘ revealed” religion, in- 
cluding even the Christian, when placed before the forum of 
that ‘‘ philosophical” century, was at best merely an obscura- 
tion of the only true, natural religion; but for the most part 
it was nothing but deceit and humbug. It was from this 
rationalistic point of vantage that the approach was made to 
the critical attack upon the revelation and history of the New 
Testament, so permeated with the supernatural. 


1. The Theory of Deception. 


The first to apply the incendiary torch of rationalism to 
the Gospel was the Hamburg professor, Hermann Samuel 
Reimarus (1694-1768). 

Besides some other works, he wrote a book of 4,000 pages, 
entitled A Vindication of the Rational Worshippers of God.? 
Yet he died without having published it. 

Soon after, Lessing got possession of it, and published the 
most important parts of it under the title of Wolfenbiittler 
Fragments. It has been said of these that Lessing put 
muzzles on them, as if they were dogs, yet that the dogs by 
their barking and snapping frightened many people. 

The most incisive Fragments are the third, called The 
Impossibility of a Revelation which all Men could Believe as 
Being Proven, and the seventh (also the last) On the Purpose 
of Jesus and his Disciples. The impossibility of any super- 
natural revelation is therein proclaimed as a principle, and 
the whole biblical history, especially that of the New Testa- 
ment, is stamped as a fraud. We quote here several leading 
passages of these Fragments, that the reader may be able 
to appreciate their author’s mode of thinking. 


1 Cf. Harnack, Das Christentum und die Geschichte, 5th ed., 4. 
2 D. F. Strauss, Retmarus und seine Schuteschrift, etc. (Leipzig, 1862), 


68 Christ and the Critics 


Thus, in the third Fragment we read: “ Christianity 
profited by the circumstance that it at first opposed to the 
pagans nothing but the religion of nature and reason; re- 
serving, subject to strict discipline, the mysteries of the faith, 
which were already in existence, until the new converts had 
been brought into complete obedience. For the purpose of 
strengthening the Christian doctrine by means of pious frauds, 
there were also composed all sorts of books, prophecies and 
miracles, which, in the state of ignorance then prevailing, 
found credence, thanks to an audacious system of deception ”’ 
(p. 337). Again, ‘‘ The Christians are mere parrots (p. 343), 
who do not fail to repeat what has been said to them.” If, 
on the contrary, ‘‘a rationally educated man, with strong 
and well trained mental powers, and devoid of prejudice, 
should come upon the Bible without knowing at all what kind 
of a book it was, he would not only read it without emotion, 
but would consider it to be either a romance and collection of 
old fables of history, or a record of the folly and wickedness 
of the best among the Jewish people, or an incomprehensible 
ecstasy, or a perfectly comprehensible piece of trickery on the 
part of priests” (p. 343). 

Like the Bible in general, the Gospel also is bluntly char- 
acterized by Reimarus as a fraud. Christ (he claims) had 
merely the intention of freeing his country from foreign 
domination by plotting an insurrection against the Romans. 
When this ‘‘ system” of his had been frustrated, and the 
disciples saw themselves betrayed, they tried to extricate 
themselves from their dilemma by attributing to their cruci- 
fied Master another intention and a second ‘‘ system,” alleg- 
ing that in reality he had wanted to be not a political liberator, 
but a spiritual Redeemer. To return to their old handicraft 
was for them too unpleasant, for, through their continual 
wandering about, they had become unaccustomed to work; 
and they had also seen that the preaching of the kingdom of 
Heaven had given their leader enough to eat, for the women 
who cared for them had always provided well for them and 
their Master. 

Why not, then, continue this business? There would surely 
be found simpletons enough to believe in the second ‘‘ system”’ 
about a Redeemer of all men. Hence they stole the corpse, 
hid it, and announced to the world that he had risen from the 
dead and would shortly come again to complete his redemp- 
tion. ‘‘ Now, since the history of Jesus in the records of his 
disciples, after the alteration of the system, is worded in the 
most important points otherwise than it would have been 
worded before the change; and since they relate as having 
happened, things on which their new system chiefly depended, 
and of which, before the alteration of their system, they knew 
absolutely nothing ; and since they omit from the history other 
things about which, before that alteration, they must neces- 


EE 


The Credibility of the Gospels 69 


sarily have thought; the result was that their new system did 
not adapt itself to history, but history had to be made to suit 
their new system. Jesus, therefore, during his life, had to be 
made to say and promise—in fact, the whole Council had to 
be made to do—things of which they had not previously the 
slightest knowledge’’ (p. 125). 

‘* So,” he continues, ‘*‘ we cannot but think that the disciples 
of Jesus devised a different system for the presentation of his 
views (whereby he becomes a suffering, spiritual Redeemer of 
men), only on account of their disappointed hopes after his 
death. For this reason also they composed the narrative of 
his discourses and deeds. This narrative and system there- 
fore are, so far, groundless and false” (p. 127). 

This was, however, going much too far. Even Semler, 
a contemporary of Reimarus and Lessing, and himself a 
rationalist and the father of ‘‘ critical historical research,” 
felt himself compelled to refute these Fragments sentence by 
sentence. They did not, however, really deserve so much 
honour. Subsequent generations turned from them with 
shame. 

David Friedrich Strauss, the biographer of Reimarus, was 
himself disgusted that the writer of the Fragments ‘‘ de- 
clared at times that the facts in the Gospels, and at other 
times that the Gospel narratives themselves also, were the 
impostures and clumsy inventions of swindlers.”’ 

Albrecht Schweitzer, who otherwise defends Reimarus, 
nevertheless calls this hate-inspired apology ‘‘a polemical 
piece of writing, but certainly not an objective, historical 
study. . . . It was only a desperate hypothesis on his part, 
adopted in order to ascribe the origin of primitive Christianity 
to fraud.’? 

‘The Fragments,” says Schmiedel, ‘‘ are so thoroughly 
rationalistic, in the bad sense of the word, and betray in 
most respects so little historical and religious comprehension, 
that science has long since turned from them to really im- 
portant considerations.”? Otto Pfleiderer adds: ‘‘ This 
example is significant of that want of a true historical sense 
and psychological understanding of religious questions, which 
is generally characteristic of that sort of rationalism.’’% 


2. The “ Natural’’ Explanation of the Gospels. 


The problem before which rationalism saw itself placed 
called always more loudly for a_ satisfactory solution. 
Reimarus and Lessing had shown more clearly than ever 
how immense the contrast. was between the rationalistic 
denial of a revelation and the Gospel history. 

1 Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 22 ff., (Tiibingen, 1906). 

2 Die Hauttprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, p. 3, (Ttibingen, 
1906). 

8 Die Entstehung des Christentums, p. 4 (Mtinchen, 1904). 


70 Christ and the Critics 


Previous endeavours to reconcile rationalism and _ biblical 
Christianity with each other had broken down, and there- 
fore the Heidelberg professor, Gottlieb Paulus (died 1851), 
attempted a new solution of the problem.? 

Mindful of the pitiable fiasco of the Wolfenbittler Frag- 
ments, and yet true to his rationalistic views, he let the 
Gospel apparently pass for history, but interpreted it 
‘‘ naturally and rationally.”.. All its miraculous facts and all 
its supernatural truths in general, whether it was feasible or 
not to do so, were brought down to the level of purely 
natural occurrences, and in every case the Gospel text was 
condensed, abbreviated or enlarged, or else interpreted in 
new and strange ways, till nothing more of the supernatural 
was left in it. 

To this end the ‘‘ natural” explanation assumed that the 
Evangelists had adapted themselves to the credulous, super- 
stitious and otherwise false ideas of their readers and hearers, 
and had either altered facts for certain psychological purposes 
and reasons, or had simply repeated incorrect traditions. 
They had also, in many places, left out connecting links in 
the story, or added accessory circumstances, which had been 
erroneously understood, or wrongly reported. Consequently 
the text and facts of the Gospel had retained their ‘‘ miracu- 
lous appearance,” of which they must be divested by the 
‘* natural” explanation. 

Here we have for the first time real, thorough-going Bible 
criticism—complete, historical, philosophic rationalism. In 
our subsequent treatment of Christ’s miracles, we shall have 
to occupy ourselves with this ‘‘ natural” explanation. Suffice 
it now to say that it turned out to be so unnatural, insipid 
and arbitrary, that it was easy for Strauss, who in other 
respects held somewhat similar views, to destroy it scienti- 
fically a few years later. Subsequently, however, it became 
the favourite theory on which were constructed the romantic 
biographies of Christ. 

It was this alone that made possible the fanciful Life of 
Christ by Ernest Renan.* This Life of Jesus lacks not only 
all scientific value, but also all ‘‘ moral consciousness,’’ as 
Luthardt® has remarked. “It is a book in which only the 
topography of Palestine, where the author travelled, is true, 
and only the language of the writer is beautiful. All the 
rest of it offends equally at every step both those experienced 
in such matters, and also the Christian by its superficiality 
and godlessness.’’* 

The book owes its unparalleled success—in the first three 

1 Kommentar tiber das N. T. (Liibeck, 1800); Das Leben Jesu als 
SH ae einer reinen Geschichte des Urchristentums (Heidelberg, 
1628). 

* La Vie de Jésus. I refer to the first French edition (Berlin, 1863). 


3 Schill, Die modernen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu (Leipzig, 1864). 
4 Theologische Prinztpienlehre, p. 302 (Paderborn, 1905). 


ee” eee a 


The Credibility of the Gospels 71 


months eight editions were exhausted—to its fascinating 
form and manner of presenting the subject, and above all to 
the sentimental, frivolous and sexually suggestive style of the 
French society novel. Renan, under the mask of assumed 
piety, became to Jesus the modern Judas, with the sole dif- 
ference that he made thereby much the better bargain. While 
Judas had to be satisfied with thirty pieces of silver, Renan, 
as the younger Dumas has informed us, received from the 
Jew Rothschild a million francs for his Life of Jesus. 

Renan, however, had sunk into obscurity long before his 
death in 1892, and to-day no one would have the courage to 
profess himself any longer an adherent of the ‘‘ natural” 
explanation of the Gospels which Paulus invented. Never- 
theless, for the most part it is precisely the so-called critical 
Lives of Jesus of recent times which have retained in many 
respects the romantic mode of treatment peculiar to Renan; 
and, if nothing else is possible, they too do not hesitate to 
explain themselves ‘‘ naturally,” like Paulus, if only thus to 
get rid of miracles and revelation. 


3. The Mythical Hypothesis. 


It was truly the irony of fate that David Friedrich Strauss 
(1808-1874), who had condemned the father of the ‘‘ natural” 
explanation, Paulus, subsequently greeted the son, Renan, 
as a kindred spirit, and stretched out to him ‘‘ his hand 
across the Rhine.”* In fact, he practically returned to the 
views of Reimarus. 

But in Strauss’s mythical theory intentional deceit is re- 
placed by the delusive ‘‘undesigned, poetical legend.” 
According to Strauss, the Christian legend simply developed 
the equally fictitious Messianic expectations of the Old 
Testament still further, and wove out of both the Old and 
New Testament myths a many-coloured mantle, which it 
threw about the Jesus of history, in order to make of him the 
Jesus whom we find in the Gospels. In his opinion, the 
miracles especially are the ‘‘ mythical garlands, which en- 
wreathe the portrait of Jesus of Nazareth.” 

Already before Strauss various critics had applied the 
mythical theory to the first and last pages of the Gospels— 
that is, to the story of the childhood of Jesus and his resur- 
rection—while they left undisturbed the real pith of the 
Gospel narrative, from the baptism to the crucifixion. 

The myth was, up to this time, as Strauss expressed it, 
the State Portal through which one entered into the Gospel 
history, and through which one also left it again; but 
between the entrance and exit lay the crooked and winding 
passage-ways of the ‘‘ natural”? explanation of Dr. Paulus. 


1 Leben Jesu fir das deutsche Volk (Vorrede, Leipzig, 1864). 


72 Christ and the Critics 


In his first Life of Jesus,1 Strauss applied the mythical 
hypothesis to the entire Gospel. 

His bold undertaking was, however, already condemned in 
advance by the fact that it is based upon three unproven and 
thoroughly incorrect suppositions. In the first place, he puts 
historical, primitive Christianity on the same footing with 
prehistoric mythologies. Like these, he claims that early 
Christianity originated from the pious imagination of the 
people and its poets. This is, however, absolutely contrary 
to common sense. 

The legends of ancient peoples. could come into existence 
only because they lose themselves in prehistoric times. The 
formation of myths takes place in the night of antiquity, 
which knew of no writing, no chronology and no history, 
which did not distinguish carefully between the world of 
fancy and that of reality, and for that very reason dreamed 
the dream of legends. Primitive Christianity, however, 
existed in a time which was thoroughly historical, had even 
reached the highest degree of excellence in historic composi- 
tion, and passed by the myths of antiquity with a sceptical 
smile. Such an age may still devise anecdotes connected with 
important personages or legends associated with great events ; 
but it does not create a new mythical world. 

The second basis of the mythical hypothesis is the alleged 
spuriousness of the Gospels. Strauss was well aware that 
myths can be formed only a long time after the events in 
question. The generations directly following the event would 
indeed be simpletons if they allowed themselves to be 
deluded by mythical inventions. Hence Strauss transfers 
the origin of the Gospels far down into the second century.? 
If, indeed, one single Gospel should prove to belong to the 
first century, the whole mythical hypothesis would dissolve 
into thin air, as the critic himself acknowledges. And it 
actually does so dissolve, since we have proved the genuine- 
ness of all the Gospels, and since liberal criticism also 
ascribes at least the three synoptic Gospels to the first 
century. 

Moreover, Strauss had, first of all, rejected the genuine- 
ness of the Gospels in order to complete the third support 
for his hypothesis—the impossibility of miracles. In his 
second Life of Jesus he confesses unreservedly: ‘‘ If the 
Gospels are really historic documents, the miraculous cannot 
be eliminated from the biography of Jesus; if, on the con- 
trary, the miraculous is incompatible with history, the Gospels 
cannot be sources of historical authority.’’? With Strauss 
everything, therefore, depends on proving the impossibility 


1 Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, vol I (1835); II (Tibingen, 
1836). 

2 Leben Jesu kritisch bearbettet, p. 23, 13th ed. (Leipzig, 1904). 

3 Leben Jesu fir das deutsche Volk, p. 18 (Leipzig, 1864). ; 





The Credibility of the Gospels 73 


of miracles. Otherwise, his whole hypothesis falls to the 
ground, and the Gospels are proven to be perfectly correct. 

Now, in the works of Strauss no attempt is made to dis- 
prove the possibility of miracles. He merely asserts that 
‘* through Hume’s discussion of miracles the matter can be 
looked upon as settled.’’! Whatever has been presented in 
favour of miracles seems to him like ‘‘ apologetic jungles ”’; 
numerous certainly, “as field-mice in a dry autumn,’’ but 
“it cannot be expected from a scientific man that he should 
mix himself up with such a rabble.’’* Then he has recourse 
to his ‘* peculiar apparatus for causing miracles to evaporate 
into myths,’’? expands his chest, and declares : ‘“‘ The miracu- 
lous is the heterogeneous element in the Gospel accounts of 
Jesus, which is opposed to the historic treatment of them 

. . historical research nowhere and under no conditions 
recognizes such a thing as having really happened.’’* 

In other words, if we apply his pet names to the apologists 
who believe in miracles, and some other remarks of his, to 
the facts in the case, Strauss argues thus: ‘‘ Miracles are 
impossible, because I assert their impossibility; but since, 
nevertheless, miracles are actually related in the Gospel, the 
Gospel history must evidently be a collection of legends.” 

If it were not so sad, it would be comical to skip over the 
most important problems of philosophy and history in such 
an utterly frivolous way. On the whole, only one who, like 
Strauss, surrenders himself blindly to the pantheistic philo- 
sophy of Hegel, will, without evidence, consider the impos- 
sibility of miracles to be philosophically proved, and recognize 
this as a standard for judging all historical reality and state- 
ments of facts. 

It is true this repudiation of miracles has found, and still 
finds to-day, the hearty approval of rationalistic and liberal 
criticism. Nevertheless, this too now rejects the mythical 
theory as such. Harnack dismisses it with the words: ‘‘ The 
assertion of Strauss that the Gospels contained very much 
that is mythical has not been verified, even if we allow the 
very indefinite and erroneous idea of the mythical of which 
Strauss makes use.”’® 

Chamberlain remarks: ‘‘ At the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century . .. it had become the fashion to explain 
everything as ‘ mythical.’ In the year 1835, David Strauss 
followed the example given him on all sides, and offered, as 
a ‘key’ to the Gospels, the ‘idea of the myth.’ To-day 
everyone sees that this alleged key was nothing more than 
a new, obscure transcription of the still unsolved problem, 
and that not an ‘ idea,’ but simply a being, who once actually 
lived, as well as the incomparable impression of a Person- 


1 Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk, p. 118 (Leipzig, 1864). 
Pads, Diy 10r ff. (SF eaten dey 4 7d., p. 146. 
5 Wesen des Christentums, 16. 


74 Christ and the Critics 


ality, such as the world had never previously known, give 
the ‘key’ to the origin of Christianity. ... That Strauss 
never had a conception of what a myth is and what mythology 
means—as is evident from his confused jumble of popular 
myths, poetry and legends—is a matter by itself. A later 
age will be unable to comprehend at all the success of such 
dreary productions as those of Strauss; learned, it is true, 
but devoid of any profound insight or creative inspiration. 
It seems as if, just as the bees and ants have need of entire 
cohorts of sexless workers in their colonies, so we men could 
not get along without the industry and the temporarily far- 
reaching activity of such minds as, marked with the stamp 
of sterility, flourished so abundantly about the middle of the 
nineteenth century. The progress of historical and critical 
research . . . causes Strauss’s mythological theory to be 
regarded to-day as so dead, even from its inception, that one 
cannot look through the pages of this worthy man without 
yawning audibly.’ 

Moreover, even Strauss’s contemporaries and adherents, 
especially his teacher, Baur, already saw that no undesigned, 
poetical legend could create the Gospel, and that there was no 
other way of escape than to return either to the historical 
credibility of the Gospels or to intentional fraud on the part 
of the Evangelists. 


4. The Tendency-Hypothesis. 


Ferdinand Christian Baur in reality dug up again the rusty 
war sword of Reimarus. He thought that he could grind 
down its ragged edges by transferring the fraud from the 
evangelists of the first century to those of the second, and 
by representing the Gospels as products of the post-apostolic 
period, which deceived intentionally. 

According to Baur, the Gospels were invented in the 
course of the second century, as writings with a definite 
purpose, in order to settle the conflict between Jewish and 
Gentile Christianity, the Petrists and the Paulists—a con- 
flict which had split in twain the early Christian Church— 
and to enable the Catholic Church to subdue its opponents. 
The pupils and adherents of Baur built still more exten- 
sively on the same foundation, even if they adopted different 
styles. Strauss also, although still retaining the word 
‘‘ myth,” gave a partial adherence, in his Life of Jesus for 
the German People, to Baur’s tendency-hypothesis, for he 
now designated conscious inventions as myths. 

But all those arguments which had already crushed 
Reimarus testify also against the theory of Baur. Whether 


1 Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts (8thed.), i, 227 ff. 





Che Credibility of the Gospels 75 


the fraud was committed in the first century or in the second, 
Christianity and the Gospels cannot be the result of decep- 
tion. Baur’s criticism of the New Testament was much 
more severely condemned by serious scientists than that of 
Reimarus, for the reason that he was just neither to the 
first century, by flatly denying that it possessed the Gospels, 
nor to the second, which he stigmatized as a perfect tangle 
of quarrels and biassed lying. 

Historical criticism, therefore, whether Christian or non- 
christian, has thoroughly unmasked Baur’s style of making 
history. ‘‘ The whole critical apparatus with which Baur 
has disputed the old tradition rightly passes to-day for 
worthless.’’* And yet the abandoned root-stock of the old 
Tubingen school still puts forth in modern theology many 
a new shoot. We can almost say that the assumptions of 
the school of Baur have been universally abandoned; yet 
there has remained in the criticism of the old Christian 
writings an undefined mistrust, a mode of procedure sugges- 
tive of an ill-tempered prosecuting attorney, or at least a 
straw-splitting method, which still continually fastens on all 
sorts of details, and tries to argue from them against plain 
and decisive observations. Instead of adopting conscien- 
tiously a ‘‘ fixed-intention hypothesis,” attempts have been 
made to spy out all kinds of ‘‘ tendencies,” and to prove the 
existence of a vast number of interpolations. 


5. The Sceptical Criticism of the Gospels. 


Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), an offshoot of the Tubingen 
school of Baur, and at the same time a kindred spirit of 
Strauss, adopted only the latest conclusions arising from the 
fallacies of critics up to his time. 

These had, little by little, undermined the whole Gospel 
history—with the exception of the actual existence of Christ— 
in order to get rid of revelation and miracles. They had not 
succeeded. All efforts in that direction had proved arbitrary 
and inadequate. Bauer went, therefore, to the extreme limit, 
in order to dispute boldly not only the shell and kernel of the 
Gospel, but also the historical existence of Jesus itself. 

According to him, not merely the miracles, discourses and 
events recorded, but the very personality of Jesus, which is 
taken as the starting-point of the whole Gospel movement, 
are a piece of religious fiction. He claims that Jesus is not 
an historical figure, but an ideal portrait; and that the Greco- 
Roman ideal of virtue had blended, at the commencement of 
the Christian era, with the Jewish ideal of the Messiah. The 
ideal of man, resulting from this, was what the most pious 
pagans, as well as the most orthodox Jews, desired. A great 


1 Harnack, Chronologte der altchristl. Literatur, i, p. 244, note. 


76 Christ and the Critics 


poet—the ‘‘ very first Evangelist ’”—personified this ideal, and 
created the figure of Jesus. Then from among the readers 
of this oldest of the Gospels primitive Christianity arose; and, 
later, through further poetical activity, the four Gospels them- 
selves originated. Finally, what was really only religious 
poesy and deep religious art, was conceived by theology and 
faith as history.? 

Nothing but hate on the part of Bauer could have dictated 
such a strange theory. ‘‘In view of this hatred, which ts 
fully as pathological in character as is his senseless method 
of punctuation, one has the impression of having to do with 
a man who reasons perfectly rationally, but who talks to 
himself, as if possessed with a fixed idea. ... This holds 
him always more firmly in its grasp, and makes him burst 
out laughing ironically. What, then, are convinced apolo- 
gists of Christianity to make of the scraps of the Gospel 
which remain thus in their hands? . .. Violent hatred and 
a wild desire to deprive the theologians of absolutely every- 
thing, drive Bauer much further than his critical acumen 
would have otherwise led him.”? ‘‘ Endowed with an un- 
limited subjectivity, which subordinates the facts transmitted 
by tradition to a preconceived idea, he has for forty years, in 
opposition to all science and historic truth, indefatigably 
taught men to regard the great figures of the New Testa- 
ment, Jesus and Paul, as literary inventions.” 

Naturally not only the ‘‘ theologians,” but also the critics 
of all shades were indignant at such unheard-of vagaries, 
which are their own strongest refutation. In fact, when 
Bauer’s last book appeared, his life-work had been already 
long condemned and forgotten. Nevertheless (and if it were 
not true, one would not believe it possible), the banner of 
Bauer’s worthless theory has recently been again unfurled. 
The Dutch writer Loman,* the Englishmen Edwin Johnson® 
and John Robertson,® the Frenchmen Emile Burnouf? and 
Hochard,® as well as the anonymous German writer, Verus,?® 
have tried, with a manifest leaning towards the school of 


1 Bauer, Krzitk der evang. Gesch. des Johannes (Bremen, 1840); Kritik 
der evang. Gesch. der Synoptiker (Leipzig, 1841-42); Kritzk der Evan- 
gelien (Berlin, 1850-51); Kr7ztik der Apostelgeschichte (Berlin, 18s0); 
Krittk der paulin. Briefe (1850-52); Christus und die Cdsaren (Berlin, 
1877), 

SBE Reh ies Al Von Retmarus 2u Wrede, 144, 153. 

3 H. Kohler, Soztalistische Irrlehren von der Entstehung des Christ- 
entums und thre Widerlegung (Leipzig, 1899). 

4 Theologisch Tijdschrift (1882, 1883, 1886). 

5 Antigua Mater (1887). 

6 Christianity and Mythology (1900); A Short History of Christi- 
anity (1902); Pagan Christs (1903). 

7 La Science des Religions, game ed. (188s). 

8 Etudes ad’ histoire religteuse (1890). 

9 Vergleichende Uebersicht der vier Evangelien (Leipzig, 1897). 








The Credibility of the Gospels a7 


Bauer and Strauss, to make the Gospel portrait of Jesus 
comprehensible, as a result of the formation of pagan and 
Jewish myths. Their assertions have met, however, almost 
everywhere with the contempt they deserve. 

More attention was paid to the equally worthless attacks 
of the Bremen pastor, Albrecht Kalthoff. He knew how to 
interest the socialists by the never failing trick of supporting 
proletarian wishes and the Marxian view of history. He 
derived the origin of Christianity from a socialistic popular 
movement, and excluded an actual historical Founder, Jesus. 

According to Kalthoff, Jesus is merely a personification of 
the social hopes and needs of ancient socialism, which origin- 
ated from the general ideal and the general wretchedness of 
the Jewish-Grecian proletariat.’ But this socialistic novelty 
could not, of course, make thinking men doubt for a moment 
the historic existence of Jesus. It was not only an exaggera- 
tion of Bauer’s criticism, but a lack of real criticism in the 
highest degree. ? 

The latest denial of the historical existence of Jesus seems 
to assume a more scientific character. The American William 
Benjamin Smith*® and the German Orientalists A. Jeremias,* 
P. Jensen’ and Karl Vollers® developed the unsubstantial 
theory of Bauer and his successors still further by the aid of 
Oriental mythology and the comparative history of religions. 
Finally, the lay-theologian, Arthur Drews, made a résumé 
of all previous attempts in this line, and conceived from them 
his impossible book—The Christ-Myth.” 

He conceived it, but certainly did not write it according to 
historical reality. ‘‘ It is the book of a critical theorist, who 
merely through philosophic thinking and his own critical 
view-point has lost all sense of the living marks of a per- 
sonal reality. He rambles into the distance, yet does not 
see what lies nearest him; he labours over the details of 
mythical research and the representations of Oriental cults; 


1 Das Christusproblem, Grundlinien einer Sozialtheologie, 2nd ed. 
(Jena, 1903); Die Entstehung des Christentums (Jena, 1904); Was wissen 
wir von Jesus? (Schmargendorf-Berlin, Renaissance, 1904). 

2 See Kalthoff answered by Franz Messert, Die geschichtliche Extstenz 
Christi, 4th ed. (1905); Thikotter, Kalthoffs Schrift ‘“* Das Christus- 
problem’ beleuchtet (Bremen, 1903); Henke, Die Zeugnisse aus der 
Profanliteratur tiber die Entstehung des Christentums, Protestanten- 
blatt (1903), Nos. 19, 20, 25, 26; Weinel, Das Christusproblem, [bid., 
Nos. 32-34; Steck, Die Entstehung des Christentums, Prot. Monats- 
hefte, VIII, viii, 288 ff. (1904); Ad. Harnack, Christl. Wel¢ (nineteenth 
year of issue), p. 316 (1905); O. Schmiedel, Die Haupiprobleme der 
Leben-Jesu-Forschung, p. 105 ff., 2nd ed. (Tiibingen, 1906); Paul Mehl- 
horn, Wahrheit und Dichtung im-Leben Jesu (Leipzig, 1906). 

3 Der vorchristliche Jesus (1906). 

4 Altbabylonisches im N. T. (1905). 

5 Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur (1906). 

6 Die Weltreligionen in threm geschichlichen Zusammenhange, 163 
(1907). 7 Published at Jena, 1909. 


78 Christ and the Critics 


puts all this together; unites it with mere academic intel- 
ligence ; finds out what suits the perspective he desires; and, 
consciously or unconsciously, rejects what could disturb the 
course of his argument; and the whole is cut up with the 
shears of an unsympathetic logician, who would like to 
represent himself as wholly without preconceived ideas, but 
who, in reality, is the most prejudiced person imaginable. 
He is at heart dominated by his own critical point of view, 
and indeed by the whole disintegrating tendency of our 
radical age. He will have it that the whole figure of Christ 
is nothing but a mere myth, a fantastic invention of a 
religious purpose; and he insists that there has never been a 
Jesus; hence his will becomes the father to his whole scheme 
of reasoning. Only thus is the whole incredible artificiality of 
his combinations and interpretations to be comprehended.’’* 
Serious criticism, therefore, both liberal and orthodox 
Christian, have in fact condemned this clumsy compilation 
unanimously and with indignation.? 

Moreover, it deserves the honour of a refutation just as 
little as does the sceptical theory of Bauer; or, to speak more 
correctly, it bears within itself, like all the doubts of the 
existence of Jesus since Bauer’s time, the most decisive 
refutatiun. Whoever must first deny Gospels which were 
written by eye and ear witnesses, and then must artificially 
remodel the so-called ‘‘ ante-christian”’ Christ out of all 
possible varieties of old Oriental and Grecian fables, in order 
to be able to doubt the real, historic Christ, has forfeited 
every claim to be taken seriously. 

And even if he should be able to tear the Gospels to pieces 
and to weave his mythological patches into a winding-sheet 
for them, the person of the living Christ would even then, 
in spite of everything, shine forth, uncontroverted and indis- 
putable, from the “ fifth Gospel’’—that is, from Paul, and 
from the testimonials to Jesus, both Christian and non-chris- 
tian, found outside the Bible. These alone are sufficient to 
lift the existence of Jesus and the fundamental facts of his life 
far above all doubt. 

In addition to this, however, the fact that the Gospels—so 
far as their essential characteristics and the historical truth of 
the person of Jesus are concerned—are scientifically sure and 
credible, can, in the present state of criticism, even in that 


i Fr. W. Forster, Autoritdt und Frethett, 89 (1910). 

2 See refutations by Fillion, L’existence historique de Jésus et le 
Rationalisme contemporain (Paris, 1909); R. Saitschick, Gedanken 
uber Christus und Christentum, Hochland (May, 1909); K. Dunckmann, 
Der historische Jesus, der mythologtsche Christus und Jesus der Christ 
(Leipzig, 1910); K. Beth, Hat Jesus gelebt? (Berlin, 1910); C. Del- 
briick, Hat Jesus Christus gelebt? (Berlin, 1910); J. Weiss and G. 
Griitsmacher, Die Geschichtlichkeitt Jesu (Tubingen, 1910); Chwolson, 
Uber die Frage, ob Jesus gelebt hat (Leipzig, rgio). 





The Credibility of the Gospels 79 


of thoroughly sceptical criticism, no longer be doubted by 
anyone who has any idea of what the Gospels and criticism 
really are. 


6. The Evolutionary Hypothesis. 


If radical scepticism of the Bible need not be any further 
considered, then conservative Christian faith in the Gospels 
has only one enemy left—the liberal School, whose founder 
was Albrecht Ritschl, who died in 1880. 

Its present chief is Adolf Harnack, and its most important 
representatives are Hausrath, Weizsacker, Schirer, Bousset, 
Heinrich Julius, and Oscar Holtzmann, Jilicher and Well- 
hausen. Their host of followers includes also by far the 
majority of Protestant theologians. These are joined by 
some deserters from Catholic circles, the so-called Modernists 
—Loisy, Tyrrell, Minocchi and others. 

Adolf Harnack’s Essence of Christianity may be described 
as the most popular scientific catechism of the liberal line of 
thought. 

Inasmuch as this school, for nearly twenty years, has 
occupied itself especially with historical matters, it calls itself 
by preference the historical-critical School, and it has really 
won for itself great distinction by its researches into ancient 
Christian and biblical literature and history. It has freed 
itself, in particular, entirely from the rationalistic and sceptical 
criticism of the Gospels advocated by Reimarus, Baur, 
Strauss, Renan and Bruno Bauer; has destroyed the last 
doubts of the genuineness of the synoptic Gospels; and has 
also, within certain limits, defended their credibility. 

It cannot, however, rise to a full recognition of their 
historic value. 

According to this school, the Gospels are not at all historic 
pourtrayals of the life and teaching of Jesus, but the intel- 
lectual precipitate of what Christians thought of Jesus and 
his teaching at the time of the origin of the Gospels. There 
is thus deposited in them, not the history of Jesus, or the 
actual occurrences of his life, but the belief of the older 
Churches. ‘‘ Their devotional character was for them the 
standard of credibility. . . . They have described (of course 
without any idea of the possibility of such a contrast), not 
Jesus as he really was, but the Christ, as he appeared to the 
heart of his Church, and as the faithful needed him.’’? 
‘“ This biographical sketch [of Jesus] was, from the outset 
drawn from the standpoint of faith, not from that of historical 
fidelity.’ 


1 Ad. Jiilicher, Eznlettung in das N. T., 327, 5th and 6th ed. (Tiibin- 
gen, 1906). 

2 Bousset, Jesus, 76, 3rd ed. (Ttibingen, 1907); cf. J. Denner, Jesus 
and the Gospel; Christianity justified in the Mind of Christ (New 
York, 1909). 


80 Christ and the Critics 


Moreover, when the Evangelists set about writing their 
works, the original facts had already acquired, so to speak, 
a history of their own, and thereby also had attained a con- 
siderable development. ‘‘ The oldest records betray already 
the most unmistakable traces of an elaboration of the historical 
element, in combination with the ideal motives of dogmatic 
speculation. . . . Jewish prophecy, rabbinical teaching, 
oriental gnosis, and Greek-philosophy had already mingled 
their colours on the palette, from which the portrait of Christ 
in the New Testament writings was composed.’’! ‘“ They 
surrounded his life with myths,” and, moreover, made out of 
the Gospels a pourtrayal of the primitive Christian faith and 
of their own wishes and hopes.’’® 

From remote times, and indeed already during the life of 
Jesus, there was mirrored in the minds of the disciples, not 
a clear, historic picture of the Saviour, but the impression 
which he had made on them. And the more forcible this 
impression was, so much the more did it continually force 
itself upon their minds. Every further reconsideration of 
this picture meant, however, a restoration and further develop- 
ment of it. 

Especially after the death of the Saviour, the disciples 
wreathed about the portrait of Christ ever new embellish- 
ments, and when they had presented to the believing masses, 
which had not seen or heard the Lord, a memorial of the 
Master characterized by enthusiastic eulogy, many a man, 
from well-intentioned motives of love, wanted to add to it 
some individual traits, acquired either from hearsay or from 
inward experience, or from an unrestrained imagination (the 
usual way of forming legends), until the portrait of the Christ 
of faith was finally completed, which the Evangelists then 
adhered to piously and faithfully. 

The situation, frame of mind and intellectual tendency of 
the Evangelists made it unavoidable that this portrait should 
prove, through writing, still less historical than it was before. 
‘* How much had already become uncertain in their recol- 
lection is shown by the contradictions between these ‘ synop- 
tists’ in regard to wholly indifferent things, such as names, 
or statements about a place or time, or the occasion for a 
discourse. To this (still further obscuring the question) must 
be added religious interest as the only motive of their writing, 
which yet is so entirely unlike that of the unprejudiced his- 
torian. The Gospels are, in fact, not books of history at all, 
but didactic writings intended to win believers. To pre- 


1 Pfleiderer, Das Christusbild des urchristl. Glaubens, p. 4 (Berlin 
1903). 

2 Or ‘legends ’’; but Hess can no more distinguish ‘‘ myth”? from 
‘* legend ’’ than Strauss could in the century before him. 

3 Hess, Jesus von Nazareth in seiner gesch. Lebensentwicklung 
(Tiibingen, 1906). 





The Credibility of the Gospels 81 


suppose in them any consideration for historical connection 
would be unreasonable, and still more so to demand from 
them an objective, historical understanding of the religion of 
Jesus. The important thing to the Evangelists was to set 
forth powerfully the supernatural, the incomparable and the 
incomprehensible in their subject-matter. What has for them 
the highest value is not what we should consider the best 
attested facts, but what seemed best adapted to suppress 
doubts about the divinity of Jesus, and to strengthen confi- 
dence in him and his cause—such as the story of his trans- 
figuration, his opened tomb, and his raising of the dead. 

‘“In the synoptic Gospels the writers wrestle too forcibly 
with material often not understood by them, and frequently 
actually repugnant to them. The real Jesus, whom they have 
received, stands at an exalted height above the man, the 
sketch of whose life they give us, with additions from the 
Old Testament, Babylonian mythology, Jewish literature, 
popular lore, primitive Christian theology, and _ poetic 
art eoge 

According to this, the Christ of the Gospels is the Christ 
of faith—the Christ of the churches and the faith-producing 
legends, but not the Christ of history. 

Historic criticism now desires ‘‘ to put the Jesus of history 
in the place of the Christ of faith.”’* The former stands far 
below the latter. He is much more human; his teaching is 
much more moderate, the actual facts in the case incompar- 
ably more natural and plain. ‘‘ To establish the real course 
of events, one must go back further than the Gospels and 
seek information from the earliest tradition.”? Historical 
research must ‘‘ cut away the rank growth of legend ’”’* and 
remove the historic kernel from a confused mass of evangelical 
tendrils, leaves and faith-entanglements, and thus bring to 
light the underlying Christ, buried beneath a superimposed 
Christianity—the ‘‘ Gospel within the Gospel.’ 

That is, however, according to the assurance of some 
critics, a desperately difficult undertaking. ‘‘ Only late 
accounts, and those not written by eye-witnesses, testify to 
us of Jesus,’’ sighs Wilhelm Wrede; ‘over the amount of 
true information which they undoubtedly contain, have been 
deposited thick layers of legendary embellishments and his- 
torical formations, furnished by the faith of later churches. 
Only after a wearisome work of elimination, attended with 


1 Ad. Jiilicher in Paul Hinneberg’s Die Kultur der Gegenwart, I, iv, 
43, 45 (Die Christliche Religion, Berlin, 1906); cf. Jiilicher, Meue 
Linien in der Kritik der Evangelieniiberlieferung (Giessen, 1906). 

Suey Hausrath, Jesus und die neutestl. Schriftsteller, 1, x (Berlin, 
1908). 

3 QO. Holtzmann, Christus, 41 (Leipzig, 1907). 

4 Bousset, Jesus, 26 (Halle, 1904). 

5 Harnack, Wesen, o. 


I. 6 


82 Christ and the Critics 


many uncertainties, can we reach the kernel.”! ‘‘ Only with 
effort,’’ says Wilhelm Bousset also, “and often perhaps not 
at all, is it possible to separate in the tradition of our Gospels 
what was the faith and conviction of the Church and what 
was the real opinion of Jesus. . . . The belief of the Church 
has painted over and gilded the portrait of Jesus.’ 

Other liberal critics find, on the contrary, that this work 
of sifting and separation is not so difficult. According to 
Harnack, ‘‘ The Gospel within the Gospel is something so 
simple, something that speaks to us so powerfully, that it is 
not easy to miss it. Extensive, methodical directions and 
long introductions are not necessary to find the way to it. 
Whoever possesses a clear apprehension of what is vital 
and a true appreciation of what is really great, must be able 
to see and distinguish it from the wrappings of contempor- 
aneous history.”* ‘‘ For the most part the extraneous stands 
out in contrast to the original so clearly—like the cut glass 
from the diamond—that confidence in the genuine, which 
maintains its unique brilliancy when placed beside any glitter- 
ing sham, is truly not misplaced.’ 

Already at the first glance the critically trained eye will 
find that the Gospel of John can ‘‘ scarcely anywhere be 
claimed as an authority for the history of Jesus. Only a little 
is to be accepted from him, and that with caution.”*® ‘‘ So 
far as any ‘ history’ at all is to be found in him, it has only 
the purpose of being a transparent medium for profound 
thoughts". an vallezory ‘of the idea.”* °° The J@stieman 
John’s Gospel can be held to be the hero of a religious 
poem.”” 

On the other hand, ‘‘ the first three Gospels are not in- 
capable of being used as sources of history.’’ ‘‘ Certainly 
these writings leave very much to be desired . . . and they 
suffer from many imperfections. It is true, gross interpola- 
tions from a later age are not found in them; but here and 
there we see reflected in them also the conditions of the 
primitive Church and the experiences which it had passed 
through at a subsequent period.”® Of course ‘‘ the good 
faith of the three Gospels cannot be doubted . . . neverthe- 
less, they have undoubtedly contained, even in their ancient 
form, much that is legendary.”'° What they report is ‘‘a 
mixture of truth and fiction.’’4* Thus, the story of Christ’s 
childhood is not to be looked on as “‘ sacred history,” but as 
“sacred legend,’’?* the “ product of a pious imagination.’’!3 
Paulus, 2nd ed., 1 (Tubingen, 1907). 2 Pesus, 70; 

Wesen, 9. 4 Jiilicher, Die Religion Jesu, 45. 5 Weses, ta. 
Rudolf Otto, Leben und Wirken Jesu, 15 (Gottingen, 190s). 
Julicher, Die Quellen, 45. 8 Harnack, Wesen, 14. 
rbid., 15. 10 Jiilicher, Die Religion Jesu, 44. 

11 Jtilicher, Zinlettung in das N. T., 325, 5th and 6th ed. 

12 Otto, zd., 22. 13 J Glicher,! 1@.7 427. 


on Dw 





The Credibility of the Gospels 83 


The narratives of miracles appear either to have been “‘ evi- 
dently exaggerated,’’ as Harnack! thinks, or they are entirely 
later introductions and legendary accounts, ‘‘ which had for 
a long time been passing from mouth to mouth... and 
land to land, before they succeeded in being permanently 
located in the written text.’’? 

Finally, whenever facts or doctrines are brought out, 
which are explainable only by supernatural power or revela- 
tion, we must suppose that these do not belong to history, 
but to legend and to the belief of the Church at the time of 
the Evangelists. Even Mark—according to the majority of 
liberal investigators the oldest Gospel—“ does not present to 
us the first and most original deposit of evangelical tradition. 
It is no more a source, but already a reservoir.’’® 

The above is substantially the view of the modern liberal 
school; and even though this hypothesis is presented by 
individual investigators in very different shades of thought, 
in the main they all agree, from the historical-positivist 
wing of Harnack to the extreme left of the liberal-radical 
group. The Modernists also, like Loisy, join in the chorus. * 
In substance, all the liberal critics assert that the Gospels 
are simply unreliable. That is to say, they do not contain the 
original history of Jesus, but the belief of the Christian 
Church between the years A.D. 70 and too. This belief, 
however, does not agree with what really occurred from the 
beginning. Is such an asumption justified? 


IJ.—TuHE PRoors OF CREDIBILITY. 


1. The Gospels Themselves. 


THE Gospels themselves are taken as the starting-point of 
the evolutionary theory. In fact, no other support for it can 
either be stated or thought of; in the latter case because the 
procedure of our opponents is one of purely internal, evolu- 
tionary criticism; in the former because it will be shown that 
all external criteria militate against our opponents’ view. It 
is, therefore, only a question whether this view can in the 
least appeal for support to the Gospels themselves. We must 
investigate first the Synoptics, and then the Gospel of John. 


1 Wesen, 16. 

2 H. von Soden, Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu, 41, 3rd ed. 
(Berlin, 1907). 

3 J. Weiss, Das alteste Evangelium, 2 (Gottingen, 1903). 

“ Loisy, Le 4me Evangile, 72 (Paris, 1903); Autour ad’un petit livre, 
44, 83 (Paris, 1903); L’Zvangile et PEglise, 1, 15, 33, 2me ed. (Bellevue, 
1Q03). 


84 Christ and the Critics 


(a) The Synoptic Gospels. 


Against the credibility of the Gospel history an appeal is 
made to the relation of the first three Gospels to one another 
—that is, to the so-called “ synoptic question.”’ 

Prof. P. Wernle,! of Bale, whose presentation of the case 
may be pointed out as typical, ‘solves’’ the synoptic 
question as follows. According to him, there is noticeable 
at the first glance, ‘‘ in contrast to John, the extraordinarily 
great affinity between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark 
and Luke. ... Not only are the histories and the words 

of Jesus in them for the most part identical, but even in the 
sequence of the narratives sometimes two, sometimes all three, 
continue a long time in harmony, and the text in many verses 
agrees in every letter. This intimate resemblance would 
already be a sufficient reason for inquiring into the mutual 
relationship of the three documents. Still more pressing, 
however, does this question become in consequence of their 
differences. Although they form a homogeneous group, as 
contrasted with John, they show a strong lack of harmony, 
as soon as they are carefully compared with one another. ... 
The problem which bears the name of the ‘ synoptic ques- 
tion’ arises from the, at first sight, puzzling connection 
between such great similarity and such profound differences. 

Our hope of finding at once in the synoptics the 
genuine, oldest tradition, after the exclusion of John, proves 
deceitful, as is shown by the above-mentioned differences.” 

On this account, the three Gospels are to be characterized 
as works derived from others, and present the further 
questions: “ Where do we find in the synoptic Gospels 
the oldest traditions?” and ‘‘ Which accounts prove them- 
selves to have been ‘ derived’ and historically incapable of 
use?”? In answering these questions, the critic finds that 
the synoptic material was derived from a number of sources 
—perhaps from an ‘‘ original Mark,” or a Greek ‘* Collection 
of Discourses,’’ or from other “‘ Traditions.’’4 

In this case, we should have no more to do with the three 
synoptics; and the question now would be, whether at least 
the sources used by them (the original Mark, Sayings and 
Traditions) are reliable.’ This is, “however, not necessarily 
the case, since these go back in their turn to still more 
ancient, and of course rarer, traditions, as the ‘‘ ultimate 
source ” of information.® ‘‘ In the course ‘of this long journey 
very much has fallen away, which for centuries formed a 


1 Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu, pp. 32-87 (Tiibingen, 1906); cf. Die 
synoptische Frage (Tiibingen, 1899); Die Anfdnge unserer Religion, 
2nd ed. (Tiibingen, 1904). 

2 Die Quellen, 33. ie eee he rip 4 id., 34-54. 

S70, caaft, Sy 2ds ROO. 


The Credibility of the Gospels 85 


part of the established portrait of Jesus; .. . but, after all, 
that is no great harm.’’? 

Only now, however, do we encounter “‘ the last and greatest 
difficulty. . .. The ultimate sources of information, which 
we have reached in our investigation of the authorities— 
viz., those oldest traditions, which Mark and the ‘ Collection 
of Sayings’ had gathered together, and the gleanings of 
which Matthew and Luke retained... are always some- 
thing different from Jesus himself. They contain the pos- 
sibility of indistinctness and remodelling. They give us, 
first, the belief of the earliest Christians—a belief which had 
grown up in the course of four decades, and had also been 
changed. Between Jesus and ourselves there stands always 
the belief of the primitive Church, as the object first to be 
investigated. This belief of the primitive Church can go back 
to Jesus himself wholly, or in part; it can also only be 
carried back thither in the words and life of Jesus. There 
is, therefore, no reason to despair or to give up the search. 
A part of the work is already done when the task and its 
difficulties are clearly recognized. And finally all this is still 
not at all the principal thing. . .. For us to-day all this 
is of only secondary importance and the last thing to be con- 
sidered. Saturated to excess with christology, we are long- 
ing for God.’’? 

Now, even one who is ‘saturated to excess with christ- 
ology ’’ will find the lynch-law justice meted out to the history 
of Jesus, to say the least, poignant. Yet neither this recti- 
linear ‘‘ solution’’ of the synoptic problem, nor the synoptic 
question in general, has the least thing to do with the sum 
total of our knowledge of Christ and the credibility of the first 
three Gospels. It is a purely literary, and not simply an 
historical, question. It would be decisive for the historical 
credibility of the Gospels only in case the Evangelists had not 
themselves been contemporaries, and truth-loving eye and ear 
witnesses of the life of Jesus. In that case, what they 
report would have value, only so far as they drew it from the 
old original sources. 

But the Evangelists are themselves the original witnesses 
and the original sources of Gospel history, and if they 
amplify their personal knowledge of Jesus through the use 
of other, written or unwritten, authorities, then they assume 
also the guarantee for their purity and clearness. Whoever 
might wish to contest this, and to cast doubts upon the 
reliability of the synoptists, would have first to prove that 
the Evangelists either used untrustworthy sources, or 
augmented the trustworthy sources with untrustworthy 
material, and thus beclouded them. To prove this, however, 


1 Die Quellen, 81-83. 2 id., 83, 85, 87. 


86 Christ and the Critics 


is not possible; and so the synoptic question cannot be used 
against the credibility of the Gospels. 

On the contrary, should the critics succeed in giving any 
scientifically certain answer to the synoptic question (until now 
they have unfortunately not succeeded in doing so, and all the 
alleged ‘‘ solutions ” are mere interrogation points), the credi- 
bility of the synoptists would thereby be only strengthened. 
Every proof to the effect that the synoptists made use of this 
or that authority of an earlier date is also a fresh indication 
that they did not look upon their task superficially. They 
were not satisfied with what they themselves had seen, or 
learned from eye-witnesses, but took their information also 
from older and original documents. 

The critics who still always rely so bravely on the synoptic 
question as a means of discrediting the synoptic writers, 
‘should consider most seriously the warning of Harnack :* 
“In the criticism of the origins of primitive Christianity 
we are unquestionably retracing our steps towards tradition. 
The task of criticizing internally these sources, and (in a 
still higher degree) that of discovering the origin of doc- 
trinal and historical tradition, and the way in which the 
real history [of early Christianity] was formed, will probably, 
a few years hence, appear to the majority of our colleagues 
essentially otherwise than it does to-day. ... There will 
come a time—and it is already drawing near—when men will 
trouble themselves very little more about the solution of 
literary and historical problems in regard to primitive Chris- 
tianity, because, in any case, all that is to be gained by it 
will have become universally recognized. This, with a few 
unimportant exceptions, will be the essential truth of tradi- 
tion.” 

The comparison of the synoptic Gospels between themselves 
would turn out, to the detriment of their credibility only in case 
the presentation of history in the three Gospels should contain 
substantial contradictions. 

Contradictions, not mere differences. Considered from the 
purely natural standpoint, as well as from that of the Catholic 
doctrine of inspiration, the individuality of the separate 
Evangelists, their personal talents, the origin and aim of 
their creations are all so different, that their works also must 
reveal numerous differences. The Protestant-orthodox doc- 
trine of verbal inspiration certainly cannot concede this, as 
may be easily conceived. And the Protestant-liberal higher 
criticism, acting at the opposite extreme, will not adopt it. 
“They act as if they had before them documentary records 
concerning the life of Jesus, and then subject these to a 
hearing before a criminal court, where every contradiction 


1 Chronologte der altchristl. Literatur, 1, x, f. 


The Credibility of the Gospels 87 


which has been brought out by cross-examination must serve 
to prove the incredibility of one Gospel, or logically, in the 
last analysis, of all four.’’+ 

Instead of this, the conscientious historian should remember 
that it is a question here of fragmentary writings, which are 
far removed from formal historical composition. If, therefore, 
the planes of the Gospel representations do not exactly coin- 
cide, it is to be remembered that the Evangelists did not 
work at all according to one pattern, and that what they 
report finds its complement in what they do not report. 

Should, however, a thorough agreement prove impossible, 
and should there remain as a result some vanishing remnants 
of different readings, nevertheless, historical research—and 
this is also true from the standpoint of inspiration—is not 
at all concerned with it. A. Deissmann also acknowledges : 
“For the history of the Gospels, and of their written and oral 
origins, which often present questions of the most perplexing 
difficulty, these different readings are, as far as the history of 
the Gospel and the delineation of Jesus are concerned, for 
the most part no greater problems than the critic of texts has 
also to solve elsewhere’’ in the treatment of biblical and non- 
biblical authorities. 

These different readings are clearly present ‘‘ by reason of 
the character of that mass of tradition, which is a mosaic of 
many separate reminiscences.”? Together with Deissmann, 
Prof. Fritz Barth,? of Berne, rejects both the narrow-minded 
method of Protestant verbal inspiration and also that of 
liberal criticism. The far-sighted harmony of the Gospels, 
characteristic of the Catholic school, as represented by 
Joseph Grimm,* proves itself more and more to be the only 
scientific method. ° 

Accordingly, the comparison of the first three Gospels with 
one another offers no support whatever for the liberal, 
evolutionary hypothesis. If now we fix our glance solely on 
the mass of facts contained in the synoptic Gospels, we gain 
the positive and very definite impression that here the original 
reality of the history of Jesus lies before us, and not a later 
remodelling of facts, according to the standard of belief in 
the Church, and, as is asserted, of a speculative delineation 
of Christ, partly legendary, partly an outgrowth of history. 

Of course, within the limits of our study the entire Gospel 
narrative cannot be examined and tested as to its earlier or 


1B. Heigl, Die Differenzen und Widerspriiche in den Evangelien, 
Monatsblatter fiir kath. Religionsunterricht, 338 (Koln, 1907). 

2 Deissmann, Lvangelium und Urchristentum, in Bettrége zur 
Wetterentwichlung der christl. Religion, 86 (Miinchen, 1905). 

3 Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu, 4-34 (Giitersloh, 1907). 

4 Die Einheit der vier Evangelien (Regensburg, 1868). 

5 Cf. B. Bonkamp, Zur Evangelienfrage (Miinster, 1909). 


88 Christ and the Critics 


later origin. We single out one point only, and this assuredly 
the most salient, most difficult and most important—the one 
on which everything depends, and which concerns almost 
exclusively both our opponents and ourselves—the views of 
the Gospels concerning the Messiahship and Divinity of 
Christ. 

In the synoptic Gospels we find the Messianic views, as 
the disciples held them just before the resurrection of the 
Saviour. They expect the Son of David as an earthly 
potentate and conqueror of the Romans. They revel in the 
anticipation of his royal splendour, and are frankly eager to 
secure for themselves the best places and posts of honour in 
his kingdom, and all this not without jealousy, and in spite 
of all the Master’s instructions. This idea of the Messiah, 
however, corresponds exactly to the popular view. It is a 
living example of Jewish popular life. 

But the death of Jesus, his resurrection, the sending of 
the Holy Ghost, and all that followed till the days when the 
synoptists wrote, had given a drastic denial to that Messianic 
faith. All was different; everything was the very opposite 
of what had been hoped for, expected, and greedily enjoyed 
in anticipation. Instead of flesh, there was spirit; instead of 
a kingdom on earth, a kingdom of heaven; instead of the 
national hero, a universally redeeming Saviour of sinners. 

If the Gospels, as is alleged, had accommodated them- 
selves to the belief of the days in which they were written, 
then that previous conception of the Messiah, which men 
had now been forced sharply to reject, both from the neces- 
sary recognition of events and from personal conviction, 
would have no more been presented. At this point surely, if 
anywhere in the Gospels, the former history would have 
been varnished over with the then existing theology of the 
Church. How natural it would have been, for practical 
pastoral reasons and out of tender consideration for the 
Apostles, to regard the old Messianic dreams of the disciples 
as idle fancies, and to consign them to oblivion! But no; 
the expectations concerning Christ, prevalent in those days, 
are outlined in precise agreement with history, although 
they were in contradiction to the Messianic belief of the 
Church. Yet we are told that the Gospels are a portraiture 
of the Church between A.D. 70 and too. 

Let us consider, first, the complete synoptic representa- 
tion of Jesus. This puts the divinity of Christ so much into 
the background that our opponents sometimes actually main- 
tain that the writers did not know or teach it. Even if that 
is incorrect, it nevertheless remains true that the first three 
Gospels reveal to us the glory and divinity of Jesus in a 
subdued light only, as it were through a veil. 

His human nature, on the contrary, stands out in bold 


The Credibility of the Gospels 89 


relief, powerfully and plastically, everywhere in the first 
three Gospels. 

“The synoptic Christ is a being of flesh and blood, who 
mingles with men, like one of them, in spite of—or rather 
in consequence of—the consciousness of his high mission. 
He speaks and acts like a man; he seats himself at the tables 
of the Pharisee and the publican; he is touched by the woman 
who was a sinner; he converses, as a friend, with his 
disciples ; he is tempted by the devil; he is filled with sadness 
in the garden of Gethsemani; he works miracles out of 
sympathy, and hides them from observation rather than use 
them as a proof of his mission; he is quiet and dignified 
before his judges, and allows himself to be smitten and 
insulted; the cry which he utters before his death is one of 
anguish of heart and physical agony. 

‘‘ Even if we discover everywhere in his discourses, deeds 
and sufferings, a breath of the divine, which raises him above 
ordinary humanity—and even humanity at its best—it does 
not remain less true that everything that he does and says 
is profoundly human, permeated through and through, if we 
may so say, with human reality.”?! 

Now it is precisely our opponents who declare that at the 
time when the Gospels came into existence, theological 
speculation had already forced the Man Jesus quite into the 
background, and emphasized only his divinity; and that 
formerly, and at the beginning especially, it had been entirely 
different. 

But in that case it is impossible that the synoptic Gospels 
should be a feeble reproduction of the beliefs of the early 
Church in contrast to real history, since their portrait of the 
Saviour exhibits throughout those characteristics which are 
pointed out by liberal critics as absolutely original and 
entirely genuine, in contrast to the portrait of Christ in later 
decades. 

It is a most striking fact that it is precisely in Luke, who 
writes the Gospel of Paul, that the human element in the 
figure of Christ comes so decidedly into the foreground, while 
its divine majesty is seen as through a veil. 

Paul is usually made responsible for the adoption of the 
doctrines of the divinity of Jesus, his supernatural existence 
and atoning death. In any case, it must be conceded that 
he brought out these doctrines with special emphasis, and 
deepened the speculative belief in them which he had found 
already in the Church, and that he in a certain sense created 
this theology. 

But, if this were the case, we should certainly expect 
that Paul’s przi!, writing soon after his death, would bring 


1 Loisy, Le 4me Evangile, 72 (Paris, 1903). 


go Christ and the Critics 


this speculative theology into his Gospel, if he had pro- 
duced the contemporaneous, didactic theology of the Church, 
and not the actual, original history.’ Yet there is nothing 
to be seen of any such infiltration. Luke is, in fact, so little 
speculative and didactic that Harnack declares that the 
Church, ‘‘ as soon as it became didactic—and that soon hap- 
pened—preferred Matthew, and let Luke retire into the back- 
ground.’ 

At the time when the synoptists wrote there were, there- 
fore, in the Church two lines of thought—one speculative, the 
other historical. The first occupied itself with the theology 
of the Church—that is, with didactic writings; the second 
with the history of Jesus Christ, the Gospels. The fact that 
both currents of thought flowed on quietly, side by side, is 
also a complete proof that both the theology of the Church 
and its belief were in harmony with the original history, and 
that their mutual antagonism, insisted on by the liberal critics, 
had no existence whatever. 


(b) The Gospel of John. 


As the synoptic Gospels are said to mirror the legendary 
belief of their time, so in a still higher degree is the Gospel ° 
of John believed to represent the views of the Church from 
the end of the first century on, in opposition to history., 

The Fourth Gospel is designated by critics as a theological 
textbook, from which the state of the development of the faith 
of that time can be exactly learned, but from which not the 
slightest information about the life of Jesus ought to be 
accepted. 

In this Gospel not the actual, but the idealized life of the 
Saviour is said to be described. John offers, therefore, not a 
history, but a kind of religious philosophy—‘‘a piece of 
theological, didactic writing in the form of a Gospel history, 
- . . a doctrinal poem, which skims over the ground of 
reality so boldly, that no historical biography of Jesus can 
be derived from it.’’8 

This ‘‘ solution of the Johannine problem” is declared to 
be one of the principal dogmas of historic criticism by nearly 
all adherents of the liberal-protestant school. Many liberal 
investigators discover, nevertheless, here and there in John 


; ji Ee Jilicher notes this. See his Zinlettung in das N. T., p. 292, 
th ed. 

2 Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, p. 121 (Leipzig, 1906). 

3 Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 224, 229 (Miinchen, 
1905). 

Leanne Die Genesis des Johannesevangeliums (Berlin, 1882); 
J. Réville, Le 4me Evangtle (Paris, 1901); O. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristen- 
tum, ii, 281-503, 2nd ed, (Berlin); Die Entstehung des Christentums, 
224 ff; W. Wrede, Charakter und Tendenz des Johannesevangeliums, 
(Tiibingen, 1903); P. W. Schmiedel, Die Johanneschrifien des N. T. 
(Halle a. S., 1906); Das vierte Evangelium (Tiibingen, 1906); Jiilicher, 
Einleitung, 6th ed., p. 382 (Tiibingen, 1906). 


The Credibility of the Gospels gt 


a grain of historical tradition, or even a small amount of 
authentic information.? 

J. Wellhausen has recently seen himself obliged to acknow- 
ledge the existence in John’s Gospel of important historical 
constituents, which come near to the synoptic Gospels; and 
this in spite of his effort to represent the original text of the 
Fourth Gospel as free, poetic fiction about Christ. ? 

Frederick Spitta wishes, on the contrary, to prove that 
even the original text of the Fourth Gospel, and indeed pre- 
cisely that text, is Johannine and historical. Wellhausen 
has, in Spitta’s opinion, underrated the historical value of 
this Gospel, and says that serious, thorough-going research 
gives, as a result, ‘‘a joyful confidence in the essential 
character of a document which has always seemed to many 
to be the most conclusive thing that the New Testament— 
yes, that all the literature about the person and history of 
Jesus—possesses; . .. so that the Fourth Gospel, even 
though it be only within certain limits, becomes again the 
harmonious, tender and principal Gospel—that of the disciple 
whom the Lord loved.”* Spitta even cannot, however, rise 
to the recognition of its full historicity. But he often 
arbitrarily and even despotically separates the text into 
historical and unhistorical* constituents, and gives it as his 
judicial opinion that ‘“‘ The conservatives and the radicals, in 
their judgement concerning this BosP sh are equally right and 
equally wrong.’’® 

In his attempt to land these views on Catholic soil, Alfred 
Loisy suffered shipwreck. First he undermined, in part, the 
historicity of the Fourth Gospel,® and then rejected it entirely, 
declaring that the Johannine Gospel was only an allegorical, 
didactic document, which clothed its deep religious ideas in 
the form of a life of Jesus.? 


1H. J. Holtzmann, Zvang., Briefe u. Operas Johannes, p. 23; 
2nd ed. (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1893); Bousset, Dze Offenbarung 
Johannis, p. 45 (Gottingen, 1806) ; Harnack, Wesen des Christentums, 
13; Wendt, Das J/ohannesev., etc. (Gottingen, 1900); Die Lehre Jesu, 
33 ff., 2nd ed. (Gottingen, 1901); Abbott, ‘‘ Gospels ” in Cheyne and 
Black’s Encyclopedia Biblica, ii, col. 1794 ff.; Soltau, Zum Problem des 
Johannesev. in Zeitschrift fiir meutest. Wissensch, 147 ff. (1901); O. 
Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, 34 ff. (Ttibingen, 1901); Weizsacker, Das 
apostolische Zettalter, 517, 3rd ed. (Tiibingen, 1902); H. von Soden, 
Urchristl. Literaturgeschichte, 211, 230 (Berlin, 1905); G. Wobbermin, 
Das Wesen des Christentums, in Bettrage zur Wetterentwicklung der 
christl. Religion, 351 ff. (Miinchen, 1905); Konrad Furrer, Das Leben 
Christt, ond. ed., 19 (Leipzig, 1905). 

2 Wellhausen, Das Evang. Johannis (Berlin, 1908). 

8 Spitta, Das OO LAA als Quelle der gions te Jesu, 401, 466 
(Gottingen, 1910). 4 7d@,, ix-xlvii. 5 zd., viii. 

6 Revue du Clergé francats, Nov. 1, 1899; Etudes bibliques (Paris, 
IQOI 
", , ame Evangile, 7% ff. (Paris, 1903); Autour d’un petit livre, 85 ff. 
(Paris, 1903); against Loisy, see Lepin, Lortgine du ame Evang, 
(Paris, 1905); La valeur historique du 4me Evang. (Paris, 1907). 


92 Christ and the Critics 


Otto Schmiedel argues that: ‘‘ The chief stumbling-block 
is the fundamental difference between the Fourth Gospel and 
the Synoptics, so that investigation into the subject results 
in the statement: ‘If John has the genuine tradition of the 
life of Jesus, then that of the synoptists is untenable; if the 
synoptists, however, are right, then the fourth Evangelist 
must be rejected as an authority. There is no possibility of 
a compromise. Every historian decides this matter immedi- 
ately, as the critical theologian does.’ ”’? 

If we ask in what the fundamental differences consist 
which necessitate this categorical “ either-or,’’ our attention 
is called to the fact that the Gospel of John, both in style 
and content, does not agree with the synoptics; and that, in 
particular, the figure of Jesus here and there appears to be 
different; being, in regard to its nature, genuinely human in 
the synoptics, but thoroughly divine in the Gospel of John. 
Moreover, in respect to the outward delineation of Jesus, it 
is claimed that, according to the synoptics, he worked prin- 
cipally in Galilee and for the Jews, while in John’s Gospel the 
theatre of his activity was preferably Judea and Jerusalem, 
and he bestowed his salvation also upon the Gentiles. These 
are the points of difference. ? 

Far from setting the synoptists against John we claim 
that, when carefully studied, all four Gospels unite in 
peaceful harmony. In reality, merely a consideration of the 
aim and purpose of John’s Gospel is sufficient to explain 
all. 

The last Evangelist wishes for his part to supplement what 
the first three have either omitted or barely touched on. This 
explains his silence about the parables and many of the 
miracles which are recorded by the synoptists, and about the 
institution of the Last Supper. This accounts, too, for his 
giving us words and deeds of Jesus which had been left out 
of the other Gospels, especially those of the eucharistic and 
high-priestly discourses, and those concerning the washing of 
the disciples’ feet, additional features of the scene of the Last 
Supper, as given in the synoptics. Also the detailed accounts 
of the activity of Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem, which are 
rendered in a more condensed form by the synoptists, as well 
as the concise summary of his Galilean achievements, which 
had been already minutely described in the first Gospels, are 
all comprehensible from this point of view. 

Another aim is also discoverable in John’s Gospel. The 
synoptists wrote before the destruction of the Jewish nation. 
They still hoped always to win over the chosen people to the 
kingdom of God. They therefore laid as much stress as 
possible on the points of connection between the Old and 


1 Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, pp. 18 ff, 120. 
2 id., 19 f. 





The Credibility of the Gospels 93 


New Testaments—the purely human element in Christ which 
united Jew and Christian. 

John takes his pen in hand, after God’s judgement has 
already fallen upon Jerusalem, and after the Church has, 
fortunately, wholly freed itself from the embrace of the dead 
synagogue. Accordingly, he accentuates the points of separa- 
tion between them—the thoroughly non-Jewish element in 
Christianity, whereby the Church revealed itself in its full 
spiritual independence and thus became sympathetic to the 
pagans. Even in his wording and representation of Christian 
doctrine, John, who is writing in Asia Minor, comes as closely 
as possible to classic ways of thinking, feeling and speaking, 
and even adopts the Greek idea and expressions about the 
Logos, because these seemed to him admirably adapted to 
serve as a vessel for the doctrine of the incarnate Son of God. 

The incarnate Son of God was, on the whole, the great 
thesis of this prophet among the Evangelists. While the 
synoptists, out of consideration for the Jews, had to empha- 
size the human side, and the Old Testament’s Messianic con- 
ception, of the Saviour, John, in opposition to the Jewish- 
_ Christian heresy, which represented Christ as merely a man, 
was obliged to defend the supernatural grandeur and essential 
divinity of Jesus. And not only that; in mind and heart alike 
he feels the necessity of revealing to men, in his entire glory 
and sublimity, the Master, whom he loved supremely, and 
whom he, better than anyone else, had learned to know from 
a most intimate companionship. 

That was indeed one more reason why John preferred for 
his pourtrayal the later Judaic and Jerusalem period, during 
which the divine-human manifestations had already made 
further progress than in the Galilezan period, when the Lord 
first imparted to his disciples the fundamental ideas of the 
new plan of salvation. The Apostle also, in accordance 
with his purpose, selects for narration those episodes which 
contain the most striking proofs of his thesis. Even the 
miracles are chosen from the ‘‘ point of view of the self- 
revelation and manifestation of the glory of the Son of 
God.” 

The Christ of John is the true Son of God, who, out of 
love to men, has come down to earth from the glory of the 
Father, and has become flesh in order, as a man, to live with 
men and for men. The Christ of the synoptists is the true 
Son of Man, flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, but 
sustained by his Messianic dignity, and thoroughly imbued 
with divine power and essence, in order to lift us up to God. 

Thus are the alleged contradictions between John and the 
synoptists solved by the higher unity of the entire Gospel.” 


1 Julius Grill, Die Entstehung des vierten Evang.,i, 45 (Ttibingen,1g02). 
2 Cf. Worsley, The Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics (Edinburgh, 1909). 


94 Christ and the Critics 


From this it is evident that there is no justification for the 
idea that Christ and christology are in John’s Gospel essenti- 
ally different in character from those in the synoptic Gospels. 
Harnack acknowledges expressly: ‘‘ If we have called John 
a glorified Matthew because he shares with him his didactic, 
apologetic purpose, one can just as well call him a glorified 
Mark and Luke; for he agrees with the former in his 
dominating intention of making clear the divine sonship of 
Jesus; and like the latter (Luke) he wishes to pourtray Jesus 
as the Saviour of the world by means of an historical narrative, 
especially designed for the unbelieving Jews and the disciples 
of the Baptist.’ 

Still more decidedly does Harnack’s colleague, Pfleiderer, 
express himself: ‘‘It must be acknowledged that all our 
Gospels occupy in principle the same standpoint, and the 
difference between Mark and the other two synoptists, on the 
one hand, and John, on the other, is only a relative difference 
of degree.”* The Gospel of John can, therefore, be real 
history, in spite of its dissimilarity from the synoptists. 

If, in addition to this, we consider in itself the essence of 
John’s Gospel, we come to the conclusion that this is truly 
history, and not an allegorical or symbolical vestment of 
philosophical and theological ideas.® 

Personal occurrences in the life of Jesus are not presented 
in general, undefined features, as is necessarily the case with 
the hero of an allegory, but are carved plastically, con- 
cretely and vividly from life, with an exact statement of place, 
time and other circumstances. 

When the Evangelist describes how the forerunner of the 
Saviour bears witness to him, he introduces Jesus as follows : 
“These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, 
where John was baptizing. The next day John saw Jesus 
coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God (i, 28). 
The next day again, John stood, and two of his disciples, and 
beholding Jesus walking, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! 
(i, 35). It was about the tenth hour (i, 39). The following 
day, Jesus would go forth into Galilee (1, 43). The third 
day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother 
of Jesus was there (ii, 1). After this he went down to 
Capharnaum, he and his mother and his brethren and his 
disciples; and they remained there not many days. And the 
pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jeru- 
salem (ii, 12, 13). After these things Jesus and his disciples 
came into the land of Judea, and there he abode with them 


1 Lukas der Arezt, 119 note (Leipzig, 1906). 

2 Das Urchristentum, i, 666, 2nd ed. (1902). 

8 Cf. Knabenbauer, Commentartus in Evang. secundum Joannem, 27- 
53 (Paris, 1898); see also Stzmmen aus Maria Laach, vol. LXVII, 361- 
371 (1904). 


The Credibility of the Gospels 95 


and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Ennon near 
Salim, because there was much water there (ill, 22, 23). He 
left Judea and went again into Galilee. And he was of 
necessity to pass through Samaria. He cometh therefore to 
a city of Samaria, which is called Sichar, near the land which 
Jacob gave to his son Joseph... Jesus therefore, being 
wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about 
the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw 
water’’ (iv, 3-7). Then follows the whole lifelike scene at 
Jacob’s well. 

And so the narrative goes on from chapter to chapter, from 
event to event, through all the activity of Jesus to the very 
days of his Passion.+ Everywhere we find luminous, radiant 
colours and definite outlines, instantaneous photographs, so 
to speak, eloquent, active, lifelike history, and not a trace 
of mere allegory. Loisy himself cannot but acknowledge 
that in many places the Evangelist gives accounts character- 
ized by astonishing exactitude, but thinks he does so ‘‘ in 
order to give to his narrations the appearance of having been 
reported by an eye-witness of the events.’ 

Then, above all, the days of Jesus’ Passion. With almost 
the precision of a statistician, and with the deep emotion of 
the disciple most closely concerned in them, John describes 
them faithfully to the minutest details. ‘‘ Jesus went forth 
over the brook Cedron, and entered into a garden on the 
other side. Peter stood at the door without (xviii, 16). The 
servants and ministers stood there, who had made a fire of 
coals, for it was cold, and warmed themselves; and Peter 
stood with them (xviil, 18). It was early when they led Jesus 
from Caiphas to the hall of judgement. They themselves 
went not in, but Pilate went out to them (xvill, 28, 29). Then 
Pilate went into the judgement hall again (xvili, 33); Pilate 
went forth again (xix, 4). He entered into the judgement 
hall again (xix, 9); He brought Jesus forth, and sat down in 
the judgement seat in the place that is called Lithostrotos, 
and in Hebrew Gabbatha (xix, 13). And it was the parasceve 
of the pasch, and about the sixth hour (xix, 14). The place 
where they crucified him was nigh to the city (xix, 20). On 
account of the Sabbath—for that Sabbath day was an especi- 
ally solemn one—the bodies ought not to remain on the 
crosses (xix, 31). Near by was a garden and in the garden 
a sepulchre—a new and unused one; there they buried him 
because of the Jews’ preparation day, for the sepulchre was 
nigh at hand (xix, 41, 42). The first day of the week, Mary 
Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, to the sepulchre 
(xx, 1). Mary stood at the sepulchre without (xx, 11). Late 
in the evening of that day, the first of the week, when the 
doors were shut where the disciples were gathered together 


BSI oD 80S. 2 Le 4me Evangile, 87. 


96 Christ and the Critics 


for fear of the Jews, Jesus came, and stood in the midst (xx, 
19). And after eight days again his disciples were within ; 
Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst’’ 
(ex j26)/2 

Whoever has the least understanding of what history is 
feels here its spirit—warm, living and pulsating. The 
trembling, painful, sanguinary history of suffering is found 
in every verse and every observation. How will the advo- 
cate of the allegorical character of the Gospel fight his way 
out of this difficulty? To say nothing of the portraiture in 
general, how will he deal with the history of the Passion? 
It is for him an enigma—a development and culmination of 
the didactic poetry found in the Gospel—appealing power- 
fully to the heart, yet in reality saying nothing. But the 
Passion cannot in the least be interpreted symbolically, either 
as a whole or in detail. 

The allegorists believe that the discourses of Jesus especi- 
ally should be characterized as merely poetical, or didactic 
personal creations of the Evangelist, invented for the pur- 
pose of ascribing his own ideas to the Saviour. ‘‘ The 
Evangelist does not separate what the historic Christ has 
said or done from what he himself makes him say and do. 
: For us such a procedure would mean a lack of 
honesty. ... Yet the Evangelist is not conscious of this 
lack of honesty, because it corresponds to his vague manner 
of thinking and his absolute indifference to mere facts.” 
Thus speaks Loisy.* In other words, owing to his state of 
mind, the Evangelist is not responsible for his sins against 
loyalty and honesty! After such a compliment, Loisy, with 
a gracious wave of the hand towards the discourses of Jesus, 
writes: ‘‘ The Evangelist makes Jesus say”; and with these 
words it is supposed to be proved that the discourse of the 
Saviour which follows them is not the language of the Lord, 
but a lifelike invention of the Evangelist, who puts the words 
into the Saviour’s mouth. 

Yet the Evangelist gives us also clearly to understand, by 
the comments which he adds, that the utterances and dis- 
courses reported by him are to be considered as historical. 
In regard to the scene in the Temple, for example, the 
Evangelist remarks by way of explanation: “‘ But he spoke 
of the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was risen 
again from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had 
said this; and they believed the scripture and the word 
that Jesus had said’’ (ii, 21, 22). The language used by 
Jesus in regard to Lazarus, John explains thus: “ Jesus 
spoke of his death, and they thought that he spoke of 
the repose of sleep’’ (xi, 13). At his entry into Jerusalem, 
Jesus connects with it a Messianic prophecy of Zacharias; 


1 Knabenbauer, 7d7d., 366. 2 Le ame Evangile, 8q1. 


Che Credibility of the Gospels 97 


whereupon the Evangelist remarks: ‘These things his 
disciples did not know at the first, but when Jesus was glori- 
fied, then they remembered that these things were written of 
him, and that they had done these things to him’”’ (xu, 16). 
By means of these and similart explanations John represents 
positively the words and discourses of Jesus, quoted by him, 
as historical., 

These discourses are not monologues, as we might expect 
in an allegorical work. On the contrary, they are interrupted 
by objections, refutations, questions and answers. Now it is 
the Apostles—the most ardent and zealous of all; now it is 
the representatives of the people; or, again, priests and 
Pharisees who interfere, turn aside, check or lead on again 
the current of his words. (See chapters ili, iv, vi, vil, viii, 
xi, xiii and xiv.) Only reality speaks and discourses in this 
way. 

Loisy, however, naively replies: ‘*‘ The intervals which 
occur during the teachings of the Saviour, such as inter- 
ruptions, questions, murmurs and disputes among those 
present are merely literary expedients to enliven and make 
easier the development of the Johannine thesis.’’? But one 
tries in vain to find in Loisy’s writings any proof for this 
incredible assertion. 

Loisy treats also the miracles of Jesus equally lightly. Yet 
the narrations of John referring to these, too, evidently bear 
the stamp of history. Think only of the miracles—reported 
with astonishing clearness and preciseness—which Jesus per- 
forms upon the paralytic, the man who was born blind, the 
young man of Naim, the daughter of Jairus, and Lazarus. 
To this Loisy can only proffer the objection that the entire 
biographies of the people healed thus, or brought back from 
death, are not reported!®? For this reason it is not a 
question of actual facts, but only of symbolical representa- 
tion ! 

But whenever the critic really attempts to carry out to its 
conclusion the purely symbolical explanation of the miracles, 
the whole inadequacy of his method is revealed. 

Take, as one example only, the first miracle of Christ— 
that of Cana. Loisy maintains that it has no, historic char- 
acter, and that it is all to be understood allegorically. By 
the “ mother of Jesus’’ must be understood the synagogue; 
by the “‘ water” the Old Testament teaching; by the ‘‘ wine” 
the blood of Christ; by the ‘‘ bridegroom” the Saviour; by 
the ‘‘ bride” the Christian Church.4 What, then, do the 
“stone jars’’ signify? and Cana? and Capharnaum, whither 
Jesus goes immediately after? and what do the ‘‘ brethren” 
and the ‘‘ disciples” mean, who accompany him? What 


1 Knabenbauer, 7b7d., 367 ff. 2 Loisy, zd., 86. 
Pa0td., 83. 4 id., 281-284. 
I. 7 


98 Christ and the Critics 


must all that be, if it has no historic sense? ‘‘ Scenic 
effects,” Loisy thinks; ‘‘ concrete scenic effects.” But what- 
ever he cannot drag into his system is for him “concrete 
scenic effect,” from the day at Cana down to Malchus and 
his cousin, who are the ‘‘ concrete scenic effect” of the 
purely symbolic box on the ear! delivered by Peter! 

Truly nothing more is needed in order to perceive that the 
allegorical conception of the Fourth Gospel has broken down, 
and that the only correct interpretation of John is the 
historic one. 

Yet let us first question the Evangelists themselves. 


2. The Evangelists. 


Did the Evangelists wish to present the real, actual history 
of Jesus, or only that history in a legendary garb? And, in 
the former event, were they capable of writing the history of 
Jesus, just as he lived, without any legendary additions and 
misrepresentations? The whole point lies there. 

The answer to the first question is given in what has been 
already said. The works of the Evangelists themselves, from 
the first line to the last, from their first deep, fundamental 
idea to their ultimate completion, are so constructed, that no 
possibility of doubt remains that these men wish themselves 
to be regarded as historians, and their writings as historic- 
ally faithful representations. 

Luke especially, whose critical ability is most highly prized 
by our opponents, and John, to whom, least of all, historical 
importance is conceded, both speak most plainly on this 
subject. ‘‘ Forasmuch as many,’’ it is said in the introduc- 
tion to Luke’s Gospel, “have taken in hand to set forth in 
order a narration of the things that have been accomplished 
among us, according as they delivered them unto us, who from 
the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, 
it seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all 
things from the beginning, to write to thee in order, most 
excellent Theophilus, that thou mayest know the verity of 
those words in which thou hast been instructed ” (Luke 1, 1-3). 
The determination to write history—pure, unadulterated his- 
tory—could not be more definitely stated. 

Like Luke, at the beginning of his Gospel, so John, at the 
conclusion of his, writes: “ Many other signs also did Jesus 
in the sight of his disciples, which are not written in this 
book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you may 
have jifel m his’ name (xx, 30,313 »%x1,' 24). This/is7the 
disciple who giveth testimony of these things and hath written 


Ltd., 281-841. 





The Credibility of the Gospels 99 


these things, and we [the Evangelist and his pupil] know that 
his testimony is true’’ (xxi, 24). It is evident, therefore, that 
the Evangelist wishes to report what eye-witnesses have seen ; 
and he himself, as an eye-witness, guarantees the truth and 
reality of the facts related. 

Moreover, the facts and the testimony of John are, so to 
speak, audited and approved by the earliest readers of his 
Gospel : ‘‘ We know that his testimony is true.” And, there- 
fore, on these facts and testimony is built up the beatific faith 
that Jesus Christ is really and truly the Son of God. All 
this proves clearly that John considers himself to be an 
historian, and that the reality and actuality of the narratives 
contained in his book ought not to be in the least assailed. 

It is true, there was a time, and not so long ago either, 
when this personal testimony was abruptly rejected, with the 
assertion that no reliance is to be placed on the veracity of 
the Evangelists. And so the Christian apologist, until a few 
years ago, had to be able to prove the honesty of the 
Evangelists from their personal character, no less than from 
the contents, form and statements of their writings. To-day 
the critics have done justice to them, at least in that respect. 
In contrast to Reimarus, Baur, and their older as well as 
their latest adepts, they now take pride in recognizing the 
Evangelists’ universal love of truth. 

Even in the case of John, to whom they still obstinately 
refuse the rank of an historian, liberal critics reject any 
suspicion of deception on his part. Indeed, it is precisely 
because they will not, on the one hand, allow him to pass 
for an historian, and, on the other, cannot doubt his veracity, 
that they take refuge in the desperate hypothesis of “ John 
the allegorist ’’ and “ poet-evangelist.”’ 

The Evangelists, therefore, wish most conscientiously to 
report the historic truth about Jesus, his life, deeds and 
teaching. They: write no line which they do not consider 
absolutely correct. They relate no episode in the life of 
Jesus, the actuality of which they do not believe. They do 
not ascribe to the Saviour one single doctrine which they do 
not, with absolute conviction, regard as a part of his teach- 
ing. It would be a waste of time to expend more words on 
this point. 

Quite different, however, is the question: Were the Evan- 
gelists capable of writing the history of Jesus? Did they 
know the objective truth of the life of Jesus, and were they 
qualified subjectively to report it correctly? 

The subjective ability to make a suitable report was as 
little wanting in the Evangelists as an honest wish to do so. 
It is true they had not a high, scientific education! and 


1 Luke alone ‘‘ had an education above the average and an unusual 
facility in writing.’’ Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, 104. 


100 Christ and the Critics 


critical precision; but these they did not need. It was not 
a matter of solving deep problems, or of extracting the truth 
from old bundles of documents, and examining it critically. 
The task of the Evangelists was merely to write down per- 
fectly concrete deeds, which had been enacted for the most 
part in public and in broad daylight, and were of the 
greatest simplicity. 

Among these even the supernatural deeds and teachings of 
Jesus make no exception. Their supernatural character in 
no way alters or impairs their natural, outward phenomena. 
The Evangelists had, moreover, neither to place a value on 
the supernatural element in the miracles of Jesus, nor to 
pass judgement on the supernatural element in his teaching. 
They merely relate the deeds and words of Jesus. They 
simply state, for example, that he caused the blind to see, 
instantly stilled a tempest on the lake, called back the dead 
to life, etc. For this there is no need either of critical train- 
ing or of high intellectual culture. Normal senses, clear 
vision, an unprejudiced judgement, practical common sense— 
these are the principal things wanted. But these qualities 
the Evangelists did possess to a high degree. 

Nothing is more unjust than the assertion that they were 
overwrought, credulous, and fond of the miraculous. There 
is not a trace of fanaticism in their writings. On the con- 
trary, we find everywhere calm, sober, passionless concep- 
tions and descriptions. 

Even where we should certainly expect an admixture of 
personal temperament and judgement, they adhere to the 
bare delineation of facts. They even relate miraculous acts 
of healing, raisings of the dead and marvellous deeds in the 
sphere of nature without the least expression of astonish- 
ment. They also give accounts of the ill-treatment, abuse 
and condemnation of their Master without allowing one word 
of indignation or disapproval to pass their lips. They 
pourtray even the death and resurrection of their beloved 
Master as simply as if in those events they had only the 
interest of the observer and narrator. Hence, although they 
were not historians in the sense of Thucydides, the father of 
critical historical composition, nevertheless they did possess 
the most pronounced subjective ability to write down the 
facts of the Gospels in accordance with truth. 

But were they sufficiently acquainted with these facts? 
How far did their objective knowledge extend? 

Certainly a complete knowledge of the chronological 
sequence and concatenation of events was not. theirs. 
Papias, the disciple of John, had already noticed this in 
regard to Mark’s Gospel.! It is at once evident also in 
Matthew and John. Luke wishes, it is true, to ‘‘ write in 


PV EUSeDIGS (72 a fr 111, 90, 


The Credibility of the Gospels 101 


order’’ (Luke 1, 3) the facts of the Gospels; yet it is not 
probable that he means by this the exact chronological order. 
For this reason the Gospels are not historical works in the 
strictest sense of the term, and do not offer, therefore, a 
real, thorough-going “‘life’’ of the Saviour. Indeed, such 
an one could not have been written on the basis of the 
Gospels. 

It is, moreover, clear that the Evangelists do not report 
all the words of Jesus with absolute fidelity. Even the 
inspiration of the Gospels, according to faith, does not 
extend to every word of the text. This limitation of the 
idea of inspiration rests upon a law of natural history with 
which alone we have to do here—namely, that words cannot 
easily be handed down from one age to another without 
alteration, even were it only from the first generation to the 
second. Some words have, indeed, preserved their imprint 
indelibly for centuries, but they form the exception. It 
follows from this that we, in many cases, cannot exactly 
determine the expressions which our Lord used, especially 
when his words are not understood by the individual Evan- 
gelists in entire agreement; but the decisive words of Jesus 
certainly did stamp themselves on the memories of his hearers 
with imperishable fidelity, as we see from the Gospels. 

As in regard to single words, so too in respect to indi- 
vidual, secondary circumstances, the Evangelists sometimes 
differ from one another. This proves that we should not 
expect from them an infallibly certain and complete repre- 
sentation of the accessory circumstances of historic facts 
either by appealing to natural knowledge of the facts, or to 
supernatural inspiration. 

All this, however, has nothing essentially to do with our 
question. We are concerned only to know whether the 
Evangelists were well informed about the subject-matter of 
the history of Jesus, and about its real facts and the actual 
substance of his teaching. That must be answered emphatic- 
ally in the affirmative. 

In the first place, the last Evangelist, John, whose testi- 
mony is most disputed, claims to be an eye-witness. Ina 
great number of passages in his Gospel also the eye-witness 
reveals himself unmistakably.? 

He can expressly state: “And he that saw it hath given 
testimony ; and his testimony is true; and he knoweth that he 
saith true, that you also may believe’’ (John xix, 35). ‘‘ That 
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which 
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and 
our hands have handled, of the word of life—that we declare 
unto you’’ (1 John i, 1, 3). Even though this ocular obser- 


1 Cf. Knabenbauer, Der geschichtliche Charakter des 4 Evangeliums, 
bei yp- +368 ff. 


102 Christ and the Critics 


vation may not refer, mathematically, to all the details of 
the life of Jesus, it does concern itself with all its essential 
events. 

Under certain limitations this is true also of Matthew. 
True, he was not an Apostle of the first hour, as John was; 
and cannot therefore, as we perceive at once from his book, 
be appealed to as an eye-witness for the whole Gospel. 
Nevertheless, he lived through the most important period 
and the most momentous events of the life of Jesus in 
company with the Master. 

We reach, then, the conclusion that the first Gospel rests 
for the most part, and the Fourth Gospel almost entirely, upon 
personal experience and ocular observation. And since both 
these Gospels contain all the critical events in the history of 
Jesus, we know these events themselves substantially from 
the reports of veracious eve-witnesses. 

As for the other narratives of things which they did not 
know from personal experience, they had at their disposal 
the oral, individual reports of the mother of Jesus and their 
fellow-apostles. 

This is wholly true also of Mark and Luke. These did 
not themselves belong to the Lord’s circle of disciples, yet 
they were for many years in daily and most intimate inter- 
course with the Apostles and disciples. They were, therefore, 
the best qualified ear-witnesses of the life of Jesus. We know 
especially that Mark wrote down in substance the teachings 
of Peter; while Luke based his writings, in particular, on the 
sermons of Paul. For his history of the Acts of the Apostles, 
St Luke made use of the most reliable accounts of numerous 
eye-witnesses and of the teacher of the Gentile nations, Paul 
himself—to say nothing of the fact that the author also 
participated personally in many of the occurrences described. 

Moreover, all four Evangelists had also, together with the 
oral reports, written documents of the first generation. Luke 
expressly tells us this in the words already quoted: ‘‘ Many 
have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the 
things that have been accomplished among us, according as 
they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were 
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word’’ (Luke i, 1, 2). 

The form of the text of the Gospels also—at least, that 
of the synoptists—indicates the use made of such written 
sources of information. On this the liberal critics especially 
lay great emphasis. With considerable unanimity they assume 
that Mark wrote the oldest Gospel. This and a further 
document—* The Sayings (Logia) of the Lord ’’—were, they 
think, made use of by Matthew and Luke. Luke has, in 
any case, profited by still another original manuscript— 
probably the earliest—which was not known to the other two 
synoptists. Perhaps also some special material of Matthew, 


The Credibility of the Gospels 103 


which we do not find in Mark and Luke, comes from an 
unknown written source of a still older time. 

We must, however, take great care not to ascribe too 
much certainty to these assertions of New Testament literary 
criticism, and above all must not attach too much importance 
to them. It is remarkable how precipitately mere hypotheses 
are credited as assured results, and how thoughtlessly even 
some Catholic critics, especially in France, at once adopt the 
separation of authorities advocated by the liberals, and 
therewith assume’ the priority of Mark’s Gospel and the 
dependency of Matthew and Luke on the second synoptist, 
although our traditional chronological order of the Gospels 
cannot be weakened by any decisive arguments.” 

Our opponents reveal only too plainly that their standard 
for answering the synoptical question is, from first to last, 
nothing but the degree of the ‘‘ Catholicity ’’ of the Gospels. 
Thus, Jilicher, in his introduction to the New Testament, now 
so extensively used, says: “In my opinion the religious 
attitude of Matthew turns the scales (in favour of the late 
entry of Matthew’s Gospel). ... He wrote a Catholic 
Gospel, and its purely Catholic tone has won for it the first 
place among the Gospels. . . . To put this genuinely Catholic 
Gospel at the head of the writings of the ancient Church is, 
however, a most stupendous mistake.”* Of this ‘‘ unpreju- 
diced’’ theory of the sources of authority, even the Berlin 
theologian, Bernhard Weiss, writes as follows: ‘‘ We shall 
progress no further in our attempt to solve the principal 
problems in the life of Jesus if we do not, by a study of the 
original sources, learn to discriminate between the various 
strata of tradition, present in our three oldest Gospels, 
instead of construing them according to preconceived 
notions.’’* 

From the investigations of the origins of the Gospels thus 
far made there results with complete certainty only this—that 
the Evangelists had some written documents at their disposal. 
It remains problematical what form those documents had and 
how far they were consulted by the writers of the Gospels. 
In any case, it must be characterized as an act of great 
injustice that liberal critics remodel our Gospels by re- 
ferring to documents which perhaps may never have existed 
elsewhere than in the imagination of some modern book- 
worm, and the contents of which cannot now be determined 
at all. That “notes’’ of great antiquity existed antecedently 


1 Lagrange, Bulletin de Littérature ecclésiastique, p. 19 (1904); Bat- 
iffol, Six lecons sur les Evangtles, p. 65 ff., 8th ed. (Paris, 1907). 

2 See /ntroductions by Kaulen, Danko, Cornely, Zahn, Belser, Bon- 
kamp. 

3 EFinlettung in das N.T., p. 265 ff., 6th ed. (Tiibingen, 1906). 

4 Die Quellen der synopt. Evang. in Texte und Untersuchungen, 
edited by Harnack and Schmidt, XXXII, ili, 255 ff. (Leipzig, 1908). 


oe 


104 Christ and the Critics 


to the Gospels, from which the Evangelists could, when 
necessary, draw their material, is of great interest for the 
historian. But practically such notes have only a hypothetical 
value, because they are not accessible as literary productions. 
Compared with these objects of unknown and often imaginary 
importance, not only the genuine texts of the Gospels, but 
even the scanty traditions of primitive Christian times also, 
retain their full validity. 

So much the more weighty, therefore, as a source of 
authority for the Gospels, is the unanimous testimony of the 
primitive Christian Church, which may be truly called the 
unwritten, original Gospel. No matter how many oral, or 
written, individual testimonies may have been accessible to 
the Evangelists, the universal tradition of the earliest Church 
was for the Gospel, as a whole, of fundamental importance. 
The whole ‘“ paleontological’’ period of Christianity is de- 
pendent upon that. 

It relies less upon individual oral reports, and still less* 
upon written sketches dating from the first generation, than 
upon the universally known public tradition. The constant 
admonition in the time of the Apostles? was, in effect, the 
following : “ Remember the words of the Lord Jesus. Keep 
his word and testimony, his commandment and teaching, 
which you have heard from the beginning. Think of the 
commandment of the Saviour, brought and delivered unto 
you by your Apostles.’”’ (See Acts xx, 35; 1 John ul, 5, 7; 
Br etenaiseet «til. ) 

Throughout their writings the Evangelists always adhered 
closely to this unwritten Gospel of the primitive Church. In 
this opinion we are at one with the liberal school; but the 
conclusions which they draw from this fact are in opposition 
to those which we deduce from it. We see in it the clearest 
and fullest proof of the historicity of those portions of the 
Gospels which were not written down by eye-witnesses. In 
fact, in so far as the Evangelists were not themselves eye- 
witnesses of the events which they reported, they deserve 
unlimited confidence only because their testimony is the testi- 
mony of everyone else, and their representation the represen- 
tation of the whole primitive Christian community—the entire 
apostolic Church. 

Now, since the whole Church, soon after the year a.p. 50, 
unanimously held this opinion of Christ, as the Evangelists 
tell us was the case, it must have evidently thought and 
spoken of him thus also ten or twenty years before; for an 
inference from the unanimous opinion of the second genera- 
tion to the corresponding opinion of the first generation, 
which had seen and experienced all those things with Jesus, 
forces itself upon us as an historically necessary consequence. 


1 In N. T. only Luke i, 1 ff. * Zahn, Einlettung, ii, 158-172. 


The Credibility of the Gospels Tae 


The Evangelists pourtray correctly the real history of Jesus 
precisely because they hold fast to the belief of the Church 
of their time. The history of Jesus and the belief of the 
earliest Christian Church must essentially agree. 

Liberal criticism, however, sets them up in opposition to 
each other. Instead of starting from the primitive Church, 
in order to reason back thence to the real Christ, it starts 
from its own modern views, and applies these, as a standard, 
to the measurement of the primitive Church. And because 
the difference between them is insurmountable, it does not 
reach the conclusion that the liberal portrait of Christ is 
unhistorical, but that the portrait of Christ made by the 
primitive Church is legendary. This is the Achilles heel of 
the whole liberal theology and history. In the following 
section we shall examine still more closely the unreliability of 
such Gospel criticism. 


3. The Contemporaries. 


Liberal evolutionary criticism starts from the influence, 
growth and development of historical events caused by legend. 
“Legend,’’ says Harnack, “is in many respects the worst 
and never resting enemy of true history. It may be com- 
pared to the climbing plant, which grows wherever history 
grows. Almost contemporaneously with the great event and 
the great man legend begins to climb upward, and the greater 
those become the more rankly it grows. It surrounds and 
encircles elementary events as well as mighty deeds, facts no 
less than persons. It sends forth its creepers from tree to 
tree, and the higher the trunk the more densely and com- 
pactly it is covered. At last, the whole forest is interwoven 
with a tangle of tendrils and foliage. One tree after another 
is sucked dry and withers away. We see no more the 
natural variety of different trees. Everywhere appears merely 
the uniform foliage of the climbing plant. Only the insig- 
nificant undergrowth on the floor of the forest remains un- 
harmed.’’* Thus does Harnack with equal beauty and 
exactitude describe the rank growth of legend. 

Unwritten history, passing on without restraint and grow- 
ing wild, becomes in time through the evolutionary working 
of the legend actually transformed, and is finally crushed by 
it. This may pass for a law of the science of history. 

But this law cannot be applied to the Gospels : first, because 
the Gospels are the contemporary representations of recent 
facts; and, secondly, because their authors were put to the 
test of accuracy by their own ‘generation. 

The school of sceptical criticism cannot yet entirely forget 


1 Reden und Aufsdtze, 1, 4, 2nd ed., (Giessen, 1906). 


106 Christ and the Critics 


its experiences with the great conclusions of Baur, however 
much it is convinced of their inaccuracy. To proclaim the 
Gospel history to be a legendary caricature of true history 
would indeed have some sense if one placed the origin of the 
Gospels between the years 140-170, as the old Tubingen 
school did. Then, at least, there would be, relatively, enough 
time for the parasitic processes of the legend to have spread 
themselves out; although even then only under the supposi- 
tion of our opponents that Church tradition had not checked 
the formation of legends, but, on the contrary, promoted it. 

But we stand no longer under the spell of Baur’s dates for 
the Gospels. The last Gospel was already written about the 
year 100; and Matthew’s Gospel, according to the caiculation 
of liberals, was already in existence about the year A.D. 70. 
On the ground of “very important observations,’’ some 
critics assume that the.Gospel of Luke ‘was already com- 
posed even at the beginning of the sixties.’’+ The Gospel of 
Mark is universally looked upon as still older. Moreover, in 
so far as Matthew and John are veracious eye-witnesses, the 
starting-point of their Gospels must coincide with the events 
described. Where, then, remains the time necessary for 
legend-building? How could such legends have so altered 
the history of Jesus within a period of from twenty to thirty 
years? 

At the most, within such a limited amount of time, the 
growth of some small, unimportant accretions, suitable for 
the formation of legends, might be thought possible. But it 
is not a supposition of such things that our opponents present. 
It is true, liberal criticism at one moment expresses the 
opinion that the original events are only partially trans- 
formed by the synoptists, but at another time it conceives 
the contents of the Gospel and the entire portraiture of Christ 
as being opposed not only to John and Paul, but in an equal 
degree also to the synoptists themselves. 

The ‘liberal’? Gospel is a Gospel without a revelation, 
without miracles, without a Messiah, and without an in- 
carnate God—a mere product of modern civilization and 
modern humanity—a Gospel without Christ or Christianity. 

And now are we to believe that legend, within the space of 
one generation, made this journey from the Gospel of the 
primitive Church and the Evangelists to the modern 
“original’’ Gospel? Such a supposition belongs to the 
domain of fables. 

The difficulty cannot be waved aside by paraphrasing the 
notion and extent of the Gospel legend-formation, as being 
what “the first generation had experienced with Jesus 
Christ ’’?; or as the “impression which the powerful person- 


1 Harnack, Apostelgeschichte, 219 (Leipzig, 1908). 


The Credibility of the Gospels 107 


ality of Jesus made on his disciples ’’; or as the ‘‘ subsequent 
effect of the words and experiences of Christ’’; or as the 
disciples’ estimate of the portrait of their Master; or as 
“the history of thoughts about the facts’’ of the life of 
Jesus Christ.* 

However appropriate such a characterization of a real 
legend may be, it has no application to the Gospels. The 
Evangelists have left to us not their personal experiences 
with Christ, nor the impression which he made upon them, 
nor the subsequent effects of his words and actions, nor 
their estimate of his worth, nor their thoughts about the 
facts, but rather the facts, the words, the teaching, and the 
life of Christ himself. They do not pourtray the Christ of 
experience, but the living Christ. And for that very reason 
their representations contain the history of Jesus Christ, and 
have nothing to do with legends. 

Another consideration which will confirm us in this view 
is the checking of the Gospel history and its records by 
contemporaries. 

Liberal criticism takes no notice whatever of this circum- 
stance. It builds up its evolutionary hypothesis with as 
much boldness as credulous naiveté, but it all rests on—air. 
The foundation from which it starts is, in any case, the 
supposition that the wild shoots of legend have in perfect 
freedom more and more overrun the field of early Christian 
history until the Evangelists welded history and legends 
together to form the Gospel, and this without the opposition 
of anyone; in fact, amid the unanimous applause of the 
entire Church of that time. This fundamental supposition of 
our opponents does not, however, hold good at all in this 
case. 

It could at best have done so only if the whole generation 
of Christ’s contemporaries, the generation which had known 
him, seen him and heard him, had died out with him, and 
had given place to another which knew very little positively 
about him. But this was not the case. A great number of 
those who had known the Saviour, his life and public 
career through daily experience, lived through the subse- 
quent period also, down to the writing and publication of 
the Gospels. 

Hegesippus, in his Memorabilia (written about A.D. 180), 
relates that ‘Simeon, the son of Cleophas, who was of the 
tribe of David,’’ suffered martyrdom at the beginning of the 
second century, at the age of 120 years. Up to this time, 
adds Hegesippus, the Church of Jerusalem had been guided 
by men “who had been privileged to hear with their own 


1 Harnack, Reden und Aufsdtze, ii, 10 f., 22 f.; Wesen des Christen- 
tums, 6 f. 


108 Christ and the Critics 


ears the divine truth.’’! The apologist, Quadratus,” and 
Papias of Hierapolis,* affirm that some of those who were 
healed by Christ and were raised by him from the dead lived 
until the time of Hadrian (117-138). When, therefore, the 
Gospel of John appeared the generation of the contemporaries 
of Jesus had not yet died out, and when the synoptists wrote, 
a few decades before, those who had been of the same age 
as Christ, and were still living, were in the sixties. Of the 
somewhat younger contemporaries and hearers of the Saviour, 
considering the tenacity of the Jewish race, probably about 
half had survived (cf. 1 Cor. xv, 6). Whether they were 
believers or unbelievers, they could not possibly have allowed 
the real history of Jesus to be so caricatured by grotesque 
legends, and these to be circulated everywhere as a true 
Gospel. 

I say expressly “caricatured by grotesque legends,’’ for 
in reality it might have been still worse. According to our 
enemies’ supposition, the mere man, Jesus, sprang at a bound 
before the eyes of his believing contemporaries into the 
position of a worker of miracles, the Lord of life and death, 
and a pre-existing supernatural being—yes, even to an actual 
God, such as we find him, in the fifties, in the writings of 
Paul, in the belief of the Church and almost simultaneously 
in the Gospels. And everyone—Evangelists as well as their 
readers and hearers—believed in this transformation; the 
Gospel was to them neither poetry nor deception; they wanted 
to deceive neither others nor themselves; they accepted the 
masquerade as sacred truth, and regarded the legend of the 
Son of God as the true history of him whom they had known 
as a mere man. But, then, surely this whole Christian society 
would have been crazy, to use the mildest expression admis- 
sible. Yet that is still the least difficulty. 

If it were merely a case of some elaborated system, some 
phantastic transformation, or a deification of the portrait of 
Jesus, on the ground of “inward sentiments,’’ ‘ impres- 
sions,’’ “feelings,’’ and ‘ soul-experiences,’’ as Harnack’s 
school imagines, all would still be relatively comprehensible. 
But, as has been already remarked, the evolution of the 
Church’s faith was accomplished in company with, and by 
reason of, external, tangible facts and obvious, manifold and 
well-known history. The time, the scene, the circumstances 
of the superhuman life and activity of Jesus, and the persons 
participating in them, are characterized in minutest detail. 

It was, for example,.in Corozain, Bethsaida and Capharnaum 


1 cf. Gebhardt and Harnack, Texte und Untersuchungen, V, ii, 170 
3~Eusebius, 4. #., 111; 32: R10 s, iV, 3. 
(Leipzig, 1889). 
4 cf. Boese, Die Glaubwirdigkeit unserer Evangelien, 114 (Freiburg, 
1845). 


The Credibility of the Gospels 10g 


that his divine power of performing miracles was proved in 
broad daylight and in the presence of all the people. In the 
synagogue at Capharnaum, still used by the Jews, he drove 
out the devil (Mark i, 21 ff.). In the house of Simon, whose 
inmates were still there, he cured Peter’s mother-in-law of 
her fever. To this house, on the day before the Sabbath, the 
people brought their sick, and he healed them (Matt. viii, 14 
ff.). Under circumstances which are minutely described he 
also healed the man sick of the palsy and the servant of the 
centurion, and raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus, 
the ruler of the synagogue (Matt. viii, 5 ff.). 

Would it have occurred to the community of Christians to 
invent these and similar details, and would the Evangelists 
have had the audacity to record them, if they had been 
wholly or even partially invented? Must not the persons 
appealed to, as witnesses, have disclosed the falsity of these 
legends? And there were among them not merely believers 
in Christ, but also enemies of Christ—individuals, groups 
and entire villages. 

Capharnaum and its neighbouring cities are reminded of the 
miracles worked in them, and the severest accusations, re- 
proaches and condemnations are on that account pronounced 
upon them: “‘ Woe to thee, Corozain! woe to thee, Beth- 
saida ! for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles 
that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done 
penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall 
be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judge- 
ment, than for you. And thou, Capharnaum, shalt thou be 
exalted up to heaven? Thou shalt go down even unto hell. 
For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have 
been wrought in thee, perhaps it had remained unto this day. 
But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land 
of Sodom in the day of judgement than for thee’’ (Matt. xi, 
ait.) 

And as the Gospels reproach the country towns and 
country people in Galilee, so do they upbraid also the leaders 
of the nation at Jerusalem and the Scribes and Pharisees for 
their unbelief, and the judicial murder which they had com- 
mitted in the case of Jesus, although the latter had by his 
miracles proved himself to be the legitimate Messiah. It 
would, however, have been madness to write thus, if those 
reports of his miracles and many other statements had rested 
on nothing but fraud. The accused party-leaders, who were 
well acquainted with the life and deeds of the hated Nazarene, 
and who closely and scrutinizingly examined every report 
concerning him, would have needed only to point out the 
deception to be able, at one blow, to strike down these annoy- 
ing accusers and their followers. 

Instead of this, they had to hear, day after day, how this 


IIo Christ and the Critics 


Gospel was preached, both before and after its committal to 
writing, in the public streets and squares, and how the re- 
proach of the judicial murder of the Messiah and the Son of 
God was continually repeated anew. Yet not one of the 
pharisaical leaders in the controversy dared to give the lie to 
these preachers and thus save his own honour and that of 
his party and the nation. It is true, the Apostles were sum- 
moned from time to time to appear before the tribunal, and 
were commanded to keep silent (Acts iv, 5, 27 ff.; 2 Tim. iv, 
9 ff.). But the charge was never brought against them that 
their preaching and their Gospel did not coincide with the 
actual history of Jesus. 

This silence on the part of contemporaneous enemies is the 
most eloquent defence of Gospel history; and we may add 
that the liberal critics of to-day give their consent to this 
compulsory vindication. 


4. The Enemies. 


The Gospels themselves, their authors and the contempor- 
aries of the Evangelists emphatically contradict the supposi- 
tion that the historical books of the New Testament are 
merely legends, in which historic facts are mixed up with 
romantic additions and pious embellishments. Consequently, 
it is not the Gospels, but the liberal theories about them, 
that are unhistorical. The more furious the enemy’s attack, 
the more impressively does the superior historical power of 
the Gospels prove its failure. We need not add anything 
more to what has been already said, since all the objections 
raised against the reliability of the Gospel history are refuted. 

Yet there still remains unsolved the psychological problem, 
especially persistent at the present time, How comes the 
historical-critical school to put upon its programme for the 
complete investigation of the Gospels and for the entire con- 
ception of primitive Christianity the ‘“ legendary hypothesis,’’ 
which is, scientifically, simply untenable? Only the solution 
of this problem will bring about full understanding both of 
our foregoing defence of the Gospels and of our opponents’ 
criticism of them. Only through the solution of this problem 
shall we succeed in perceiving that all that has been thus far 
said was only a skirmish on the outer battle lines, while 
fundamentally a much deeper intellectual conflict, based on 
principle, is going on. 

It would be, in fact, incomprehensible if the historical- 
critical school persisted in misunderstanding the Gospel in 
consequence of such frivolous pretexts as those which it 
puts forward, and it would be most unjust for us to doubt 
the scientific rectitude of so many able men. Some of them, 
and above all Harnack, have rendered great services to the 
history of primitive Christianity, as we have repeatedly 


The Credibtlity of the Gospels III 


acknowledged, and in this connection most gladly recognize 
again. 

The criticism of former times attached great importance to 
the fact that the primitive Christian tradition in regard to 
history and faith reached its full development only after one, 
or even two, centuries; that the most diverse peoples and 
lands contributed to its contents; and that, in consequence, 
old Christian literature, which asserts the contrary, is abso- 
lutely unreliable. To-day, the “ historical-critical school’’ 
concedes that both the outer frame and the historical and 
doctrinal tradition originating within it have been correctly 
outlined by primitive Christianity. ‘“‘ During the years from 
A.D. 30 to 70, in Palestine, and more particularly in Jerusalem, 
practically everything came into being and took place, which 
subsequently underwent development.’’* ‘“ The chronological 
framework, in which tradition has put the documents together, 
is correct in all the principal points, from the Epistles of Paul 
to Irenzeus, and compels the historian to take no account of 
all the hypotheses about the historical course of things which 
deny this framework.’’? 

In particular the ‘‘ retrograde movement to tradition” is 
more and more favourable to the age, authenticity and 
reliability of the Gospels, owing to the historical researches 
of men of all camps. Harnack announces that even in the 
sphere of primitive Christianity the “essential truth of 
tradition (a few insignificant exceptions left out of considera- 
tion) will, in a few years, acquire universal importance.’’? 
In a word, because modern criticism has bethought itself 
again of strictly historical research, and in proportion as it 
remains true to the historic method of investigation, it ts 
coming more and more to the perception that the Gospels 
and the tradition concerning them are right. 

But why, then, does it not, after all this, accept these 
historical books as they are? Why does it raise again in the 
last court of appeal such objections to their reliability that 
all previous decisions in the case are once more made illusory ? 
Why does it declare, in spite of the Gospels and their authors 
and contemporaries, that the New Testament reports are for 
the most part legendary creations? 

For the simple reason that the Gospel history opposes the 
modern liberal view. Whenever this view comes in collision 
with Gospel history, the latter is measured by the standard 
of the former, and so historical research is subordinated to 
philosophic presuppositions. 

The Gospel claims to rest essentially upon divine revelation. 
Liberal rationalism, ‘‘ warmed up with fresh flavour, and 


1 Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, iv. 
2 Harnack, Chronologie der altchr. Ltt., 1, x. 3 ¢hid. 


I12 Christ and the Critics 


tempered by indistinctness’’ (Schnehen), wishes to explain 
every religion, the Christian included, by the purely natural 
evolution and development of humanity. There is no question 
of a revelation of God to men, or of any higher intervention 
of divine power in human history. Only faith—blind, legend- 
loving credulity—can dream of a revelation and the super- 
natural. 

It is this thoroughly prejudiced philosophy of history and 
this historical method alone which have produced the evolu- 
tionary criticism of the Gospels. So long as the text of the 
Gospels presupposes nothing supernatural, it is considered 
historical; but in so far as it speaks “supernaturally,’’ it is 
legendary. Either supernatural or natural—that is the start- 
ing-point of sceptical criticism. According to this biassed 
scheme the credibility of the Gospels is finally settled. 

Renan confesses openly : “‘ The question of the supernatural 
forms the basis of every discussion about matters of this 
kind. . . . That the Gospels are partly legendary is evident, 
since they are full of miracles and the supernatural. .. . 
Not because it has been proved to me that the Gospels are 
undeserving of an absolute faith in them, but because they 
relate miracles, do I say : the Gospels are legends; it is pos- 
sible that they contain history, but not everything in them is 
historic. A rapid work of transformation was effected in the 
first twenty or thirty years after the death of Christ, and this 
imprinted everywhere on his biography the characteristics of 
a legend.’’? 

In this respect the liberal school has never got beyond 
Renan. It is true it does not acknowledge it with such 
smiling cynicism as he uses. It is busily occupied, rather, in 
covering its philosophical subconsciousness with rich his- 
torical-critical drapery. Yet it would protest energetically 
should one attribute to it any other than the purely natural- 
istic conception and practical criticism of the Gospel.?_ Every 
‘absolutely marvellous, wholly incomprehensible event .. . 
and everything inscrutable, shows itself, in advance, accord- 
ing to its subject-matter, to be dogmatic legend,’’ and must 
be cut out, as a legendary excrescence.* 

Thus and similarly the watchword goes through all the 
ranks of ‘‘theologians engaged in historical research.’’ The 
starting-point of the legendary theory is, therefore, the evolu- 
tionary view of life—a philosophical principle. This prin- 
ciple is now, along the whole line, applied to the Gospels, 
and the Gospel’s texts and facts are judged in accordance 
with it. The critics curtly declare, with Harnack, that they 
“frequently cannot accept the representations and explana- 

1 Vie de Jésus, vi, 1X, xlviii, xci, 13th ed. 
2 cf. Harnack, Lukas der Arst; iii f. 
3 Bousset, Jesus, 2, 5, 3rd ed. (Ttibingen, 1907). 


: 
, 
r 
f 

) 

a 





s 


The Credibility of the Gospels I13 


tions of the first reporters.’’! That is enough to characterize 
a text or a fact as legendary. 

Harnack’s Berlin colleague, Bernhard Weiss, himself 
severely criticizes this method of procedure against the 
Gospels with the words: “ At the root of many new repre- 
sentations of the life of Jesus lies the idea that one must, in 
order to comprehend correctly the essence of Christianity, 
go back from the apostolic doctrine of Christ to the teaching 
of Jesus himself . . . in order then to cut out what may 
have been formed first in the apostolic teaching under the 
influences of contemporaneous history from descriptions of 
the person and the words of Christ. To a real historical- 
critical student especially, the complete hopelessness of this 
undertaking must be at once evident. . . . The eliminating 
process, attempted by criticism, is begun in accordance with 
thoroughly subjective points of view and philosophical pre- 
suppositions which are entirely foreign to historical investi- 

ation. ’* 

Prof. Wilhelm Wrede, certainly a good liberal investi- 
gator, thus characterizes the historical method of his school : 
“Features which are considered incredible are cut out of the 
text, and the sense is altered so that it may become historic- 
ally usable ’’—from the rationalistic standpoint, of course— 
“that is, something is substituted in the report which the 
author never thought of, and this is given out as its historical 
purport . . . although.no one ever asks whether the real 
essence of the report is not thereby destroyed. . .. This is 
why so many judgements based upon ‘taste’ abound. The 
number of arbitrary psychological interpretations of the 
words, facts and contexts of the Gospels in literature is 


legion. . . . Two things are common to all these manifold 
attempts—the taking away of parts and the making of new 
interpretations. . . . Every investigator proceeds finally in 


such a way that he retains of the words handed down to us 
just what can be adapted to his own construction of the facts 
and his conception of historical possibility. Everything else 
he rejects. The fact that the words lose thus more or less 
the sense in which they were transmitted to us gives him 
Hee concern.’ * 

H. J. Holtzmann confesses: ‘‘ That there is justification for 
such a charge cannot be doubted. Psychological suppositions, 


1 Warnack, Lukas der Arzt, iv. In Gegenwart, No. 1 of 1901, it is 
interesting to watch E. von Hartmann balancing accounts with Har- 
nack’s Wesen des Christentums— to show that even to-day an historico- 
critical theologian of the highest impartiality is unfaithful to critical 
methods and evolutionary viewpoints as soon as he comes to the teaching 
of Jesus.” E. von Hartmann, Das Christentum des N. T., x (Sachsa, 
1905). 

* Das Leben Jesu, i, 11, 4th ed. (Stuttgart u. Berlin, 1902). 

3 Das Messtasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, 2 ff., 85 ff. (GOttingen, 
1go1). 


ip 8 


114 Christ and the Critics 


amateurish fancies, and adventurous guessing play almost as 
fatal a part in all this literature, as do efforts to ‘harmonize 
the Gospels’ from dogmatic motives and the violent treat- 
ment of the authorities.’’? 

The ultra-radical pastor, Albrecht Kalthoff, adds: ‘‘ The 
numerous passages in the Gospels, which must be struck 
out by this liberal theology, stand on precisely the same 
literary level as those passages out of which theology 
constructs its historic Jesus.’’? 

The separation of the historic from the legendary features 
of the Gospels rests, therefore, on nothing but personal 
choice. ‘“ The transpositions and new connections made 
are aS numerous as the internal and external perversions of 
the text.’ Most of the representatives of the so-called 
modern theology, in making their excerpts, use the shears 
according to the critical method loved by David Strauss: 
that is, ‘‘The mythical element in the Gospel is to be cut 
out, and what remains is to form the historical core.’’* 

In fact, even the most zealous adherents of the liberal 
school confess that the Gospel criticism of the last few years 
is nothing else than a return to David Strauss® and F. 
Christian Baur.® 

In regard to W. Wrede, the latest renowned representative 
of the ‘‘ historical-critical” line of thought, the following 
complaint is made by a modern theologian: “‘ We must, to 
our regret, state it as a fact that the latest attempt to test 
the material of Gospel history in regard to its historical value 
leads us again at once into the track even of Bruno Bauer.’’? 
Schweitzer declares the same thing in reference to the 
criticisms of Otto Schmiedel and Hermann von Soden: 
“They run straight into the hands of Bruno Bauer.’’® 

That is not quite correct, since the liberal school wishes to 
save for the most part the external compass of the Gospels; 
but it is true in so far as this school empties the Gospels of 
much of their inner contents, denies all that is supernatural 
and miraculous in them, and explains this as a legendary, 
‘““mythical’’ ingredient. But now, according to Pfleiderer’s 
own confession, “the mythical and the possibly historical 
features of the text are so inseparably interwoven that the 


l Das messtanische Bewusstsein Jesu, 44 (Tiibingen, 1907). 

2 Das Christusproblem, 20. 

3 Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 294. 

4 Kalthoff, Das Christusproblem, 27 

5 W. Brandt, Die evang. Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christen- 
tums, x (Leipzig, 1893). 

®€ Schmiedel, Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, vi, 2nd ed. 
(Ttibingen, 1906). 

7 H. Zimmermann, Der historische Werth der dltesten Uberlieferung 
von der Geschichte Jesu im Markusevangelium, 1 ff. (Leipzig, 1905). 

8 Von Reitmarus zu Wrede, 303. 


The Credibility of the Gospels II5 


two cannot be divided from each other without depriving the 
latter also of their definite significance and retaining only an 
indistinct shadow.’”? 

Here, then, we really reach the final result of the liberal 
criticism of the Gospels: “‘ Almost everywhere we are left 
standing helplessly in the midst of uncertainties and sup- 
positions.’’* In his search for the “ Gospel in the Gospel,”’ 
Harnack writes: “We ought not to be like the child who, 
in his attempt to find the heart of a plant, kept stripping it 
of its leaves until he had nothing more left in his hand, and 
was forced to perceive that precisely the leaves were the 
heart itself.’’? Such, however, has been his own experience 
and that of his school. They thought they could tear out of 
the Gospel one leaf after another, and transfer them to the 
account of legend-formation, without detriment to the 
Gospel’s heart. What one critic, however, for personal 
reasons allowed to remain, another, just as autocratically, 
cut away, until finally the whole was stripped bare. 

Let us recapitulate. The starting point, the real strong- 
hold from which liberal criticism proceeds and finally pro- 
nounces our Gospels to be legends, is the rationalistic and 
agnostic view. So long as the historical-critical school pro- 
ceeds historically, and so long as modern historians occupy 
themselves with history, they recognize more and more the 
sterling value of the Gospels. Only in so far as they depart 
from the strictly historical method of research does the 
legendary theory gain importance. It is, however, an act 
of violence to science to destroy a purely historic question 
by means of a philosophical principle. Even if this philo- 
sophical principle were not false, the procedure of liberal 
criticism would be, nevertheless, unscientific. 

The procedure of the legendary theory is no less unhistorical 
and arbitrary than its starting point. Liberal criticism pro- 
ceeds always in the very error which it wishes to shift off 
upon the Gospels. According to its theory, the authors of 
the Gospels allowed themselves unconsciously to be influenced 
by the views of the contemporaneous Church in such a 
way that they painted over the golden ground of objective 
history, with the variegated colours of subjective impres- 
sions. Yet in reality this reproach falls precisely upon liberal 
criticism. 

It starts out from its subjective view, constructs according 
to that the modern “ Gospel in the Gospel,’’ and finally pro- 
duces a Gospel history which changes its hues to suit all 
shades of the modern world of scepticism and of the personal 
scholarly ideas of individual critics. As the radical W. von 

1 Protest. Monatschrift, 172 (1906). 


2 Bousset, Jesus, 9, 3rd ed. (Tiibingen, 1907). 
3 Wesen des Christentums, 9. 


116 Christ and the Critics 


Schnehen remarks: “As a permanent and essential nucleus 
of the Gospel, practically nothing is of value which was held 
to be most important by Jesus himself or his disciples—no, 
only that is designated a ‘nucleus,’ which appears acceptable 
to the theological freethought of to-day, or to which a new 
interpretation can be easily given.’’? 

According to this, not the Gospel of the Evangelists, but 
the Gospel of liberal criticism, is, in the full sense of the 
word, a romantic and fantastic pourtrayal of the history of 
Christ and of primitive Christianity. ‘‘ All the latest literature 
(of the school of Ritschl) about the life of Jesus can be 
looked upon as the climax of theological romanticism, which 
considers its ideals realized, and strives to prove that the 
historic Jesus was the realization of this ideal.’’? 

The final result of liberal Gospel-criticism is such that it 
invalidates the criticism itself. In the name of historical 
research it declares at first that the Gospels are in substance 
trustworthy, and that ‘there are no gross interpolations of 
a later date. Only here and there we see reflected in them 
the conditions prevailing in the primitive Church.” Finally, 
however, the Gospels and their contents are, in the name of 
its philosophical point of view, so transformed, that “ the 
newly found presentation of the life of Jesus produces an 
impression almost the opposite of that which the description 
of our Evangelists makes.’ This contradiction between 
the beginning and the end of liberal criticism is the sharpest 
conceivable condemnation of that criticism. Like all other 
attempts to explain the Gospel, without the essential historical 
truth of the events related in it, so this one also shows itself 
to be a hopeless task. 

We have now reached the conclusion of our investigation 
of the Gospels. We have had the experience of everyone 
who is laying foundations. The work and effort are always 
greater than they at first seemed. Yet, after all, not only 
the foundation, but also a good part of the edifice itself is thus 
built. 

So is it with the composition of a defence of Christianity. 
The Gospels form its foundation. When the authenticity 
and credibility of these historical books are once established, 
the apologist moves on firm ground. He has then the right 
unhesitatingly to draw his proofs from every part of the 
Gospels for the solution of all the problems which present 
themselves. He is, therefore, freed from the trouble of 
always examining anew the foundations, as he passes from 
question to question and from text to text. The Gospels are 
for him, in their full extent and in the strictest sense of the 
word, historical authorities and scientific evidence. 


1 Der moderne Jesuskultus, 34, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt a. M., 1906). 
2 Ed. von Hartmann, Das Christentum des N. 7., 16. 
8 M. Kahler, Dogmatische Zeitfragen, ii, 116. 


The Credibility of the Gospels 117 


If we, however, in subsequent pages now and _ then 
demonstrate again in particular the reliability of certain 
individual parts or passages of the Gospels; if we lay greater 
stress upon the synoptic Gospels than on the Gospel of 
John; if we finally give more prominence in the Gospels to 
the words and personal testimony of Jesus than to the testi- 
mony of the Evangelists, we do so for two reasons. First, 
in order to meet the objections and prejudices of the critics 
in a peaceful way, and to dispel them; and secondly, to show 
that the enemies of Christianity exert themselves to no pur- 
pose in appealing from the unity of the Gospel text to 
isolated textual difficulties, from the synoptic Gospels to 
the Gospel of John, and from the Evangelists to Jesus Christ 
himself. 

With this acceptance of the results of the affirmative 
criticism of the Gospels, the groundwork of the defence of 
Christ and Christianity is, in a certain sense, completed. 
Whoever comes to the Gospels with the firm conviction that 
he has before him genuine and entirely trustworthy sources 
of history will at once find in them also convincing motives 
for the Christian faith. 

Thus and in no other way did the Christians of the first 
century and of all subsequent time, the learned and the un- 
learned, come to a belief in the truth of the Gospels. 

To-day also the Gospel still retains its divine power. 
But it is necessary to read and hear it with an unprejudiced 
mind, an honest will, and a prayerful heart. With an un- 
prejudiced mind; for whoever is pledged to a preconceived 
view, and takes that as a standard by which to judge of the 
Gospel, will naturally become confused in regard to it. With 
an honest will, to seek Christ and the truth of Christianity, 
and to accept them when found; for faith is not alone a 
matter of the understanding, but fully as much, and indeed 
in a higher degree, an affair of the will. With a prayerful 
heart; for faith must, above all, be considered as a precious 
grace from God, “coming down from the Father of lights, 
from whom cometh every best and perfect gift’’ (James i, 17). 


f HF: ay 
apne 
; 


1 


oT 


; Py Pe 
Nanaia” 
Oia ws 


v i 





Jeera ah NI 


ida Sol  CaCONSCLOUSNE SS 
Obi Pits J: 


119 





INTRODUCTORY 


FTER liberal criticism has fashioned the- Gospels 
to suit its purposes, it sketches approximately the 
following portrait of the person of the Saviour. 
The man of Nazareth appears, first of all, as a 
real man among his fellow-men. He is nothing 

more, and claims to be no more. There is no trace of his 
having looked upon himself as the Messiah, expected by the 
Jewish people, or of his having had even a faint idea of the 
Messianic vocation. He only knew himself already very 
early in life as a “Son of God,’’ that is, as a human being 
specially favoured and endowed by God. By means of this 
consciousness he came, either naturally or in consequence of 
self-suggestion, gradually to the conviction of his Messianic 
mission and dignity. He did not, however, yet dare to come 
out openly as the Messiah and to declare himself as such. 
Only at the end of his life, and especially before his judges, 
did he energetically declare himself to be the Messiah-King, 
and went to death for the conviction that he would come 
again, in order to establish his Messianic kingdom. 

Overpowered by the force of his words and personality, 
the first disciples and the believers of the first century 
idealized the portrait of the Saviour. They promulgated the © 
assertion that Jesus would not only unfold the spiritual 
activity of the Messiah, at his second coming, but that he 
had already unfolded it in his earthly life, which was a matter 
of history. Yes, not only his life, but his death also was a 
Messianic deed. He had died in order to redeem the world 
from sin and spiritual bondage. Moreover, the Redeemer 
had already existed previously, before his earthly life, in 
heaven with God, and after his death had risen from the 
dead, to return to his heavenly Father. 

From this assertion to the complete deification of Jesus 
had then been only a step. This step also has been taken 
unquestioningly. The claims of the Saviour to be a child of 
God have been interpreted physically and metaphysically, 
and he has accordingly been declared to be the incarnate, 
consubstantial Son of God. 

In the synoptic Gospels, it is said, are still found trifling 
additions showing the traces of such a retouching of the 
historical portrait of Christ. But this process had already 
made great progress in the faith of the Church of that time. 

Paul has seen to it that the theology and christology thus 
formed were practically and theoretically established and 
developed. The imaginative formation of the faith, freely 

I2I 


122 Christ and the Critics 


exercised in the second and third generations of Christians, 
did the rest, until the development of christological dogma 
reached its conclusion in the writings of John. 

This, in a few sentences, is the portrait of Christ as drawn 
by Protestant liberalism as well as by Catholic Modernism. 
Both consider this conception of him the only scientific one. 
But while the Protestant school consistently condemns the 
Christ of faith as a caricature, the Modernists, who call 
themselves Catholic, utter the incomprehensible absurdity 
that faith has, positively, or at least possibly, idealized the 
historical portrait of Jesus, and has been right in doing so. 

The honest searcher after truth, however, can have nothing 
to do with such ambiguity. Either the Christ of faith is 
identical with the Christ of historical science, or he is wholly 
an illusion. Either the Messiah and the Son of God—and 
about these two essential elements of christology the entire 
question turns—proves himself to be a real manifestation of 
history, or he cannot be for us an object of faith and convic- 
tion. For faith holds firmly that its portrait of Christ is 
based upon history, and agrees essentially with history. 

Briefly, therefore, it is a question whether the Gospels and 
other early Christian documents, which we have come to 
know as reliable sources of information about the historical 
life of Jesus, represent the Saviour as the Messiah and the 
Son of God in the sense adopted by faith, or not. We 
should have a perfect right to answer this life-or-death 
question for Christianity by appealing to all the declarations 
of the above-mentioned sources, whether they are made 
directly by Christ himself or by the disciples. For our line 
of argument to prove the reliability of the Gospel sources 
reaches its climax precisely in the evidence that the views 
and reports of the Evangelists are not to be regarded as the 
expressions of a faith at variance with history, but as thor- 
oughly authentic reports, which are in accord with history. 

Nevertheless, because our opponents are always hunting 
out in the views of the disciples infiltrations of the later faith 
of the Church, and appeal from them to the testimony of 
Jesus to himself, it is expedient to deal with his artifice of 
liberal criticism. What Christ has thought of himself and 
said of himself must in any case be decisive in solving the 
problem of his Messiahship and divinity. We take our stand, 
therefore, first of all, on the direct consciousness of Jesus and 
his testimony to himself, on the utterances critically con- 
ceded as certain, which Jesus personally made regarding his 
Messiahship and divinity. Moreover, provided, especially in 
the inquiry into Christ’s consciousness of divinity, the Apostles 
and disciples also are admitted as witnesses, that can happen 
only in so far as their views may be traced back again directly 
to Christ. 


Sntroductory 123 


The problem of the Messiahship, which we first encounter 
here, is a life-or-death question for Christianity. It is true, 
among freethinking theologians, there are not wanting 
those who would willingly give up the point of the Messiah- 
ship with no fear that thereby Christianity would lose any- 
thing. Such a view, however, is comprehensible only from 
the standpoint of a Christianity without Christ. For one 
who does not adopt this singular standpoint the Messiah- 
ship of Jesus is of central importance. Not only the believ- 
ing representatives of supernatural Christianity, but also 
good liberal partisans of a purely natural, evolutionary 
Christianity are agreed in this, that ‘‘if Jesus did not regard 
himself as the Messiah that means the death-blow to 
the Christian faith.”? ‘‘ The name ‘ Messiah’ includes the 
assertion of the pre-eminence of Christianity . . . and con- 
tains the certainty of a salvation to be found at most in Jesus; 
hence Christianity will never give up this thought... .’’§ 
“For what can ‘Christ’ mean other than the religion of 
Christ, whether it be of Christ or by Christ? ‘Christ’ is, 
however, really the translation of ‘ Messiah.’ ’’4 

We understand thus why the Messtahship of Jesus stands 
in the very front of modern research into the life and charac- 
ter of Christ. A veritable flood of books and treatises about 
the Saviour’s Messianic consciousness and testimony to him- 
self has been poured out over the literary world in recent 
times. It already needs real courage to toil through all these, 
and yet the number still increases from year to year. 

And just as the fulfilment of the Messianic hopes is a life- 
or-death question for Christianity, so was the Messianic hope 
the very heart of Judaism. The whole Old Testament drew 
its vitality from the Messianic prophecy. The expectation 
of the Messiah and the prospect of the Redeemer of Israel 
formed in particular, shortly before the commencement of the 
Christian era, the only great hereditary property of Judaism. 

Everything else Israel had at this time wholly or nearly 
lost. Its political freedom and independence were ended. 
Since the year 63 B.c. the city of Jerusalem had been in 
Roman hands. Twenty-three years later Herod of Idumea 


1 Thus Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums, 81-89 (1900); R. Steck, 
in Protestantische Monatshefte, 91 (1903); J. Wellhausen, /sraelitische 
und judische Geschichte, p. 380 (1907); Das Evangelium Marc, p. 71 
(1903); Ed. von Hartmann, Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments, 110 
(1905); O. Frommel, Dze Poeste des Evangeliums Jesu, 150 (1906); 
O. Kluge, Die /dee des Priestertums in Israel-Juda und 1m Urchristen- 
tum, 40 (1906); A. Deissmann, Lvangelium und Urchristentum in 
Bettréige zur Wetterentwicklung der christlich. Religion, 107. 

2 Albrecht Schweitzer, Das Messiantdts- und Leidensgeheimnis, eine 
Skizze des Lebens Jesu, vi (1901). 

3 Oskar Holtzmann, Das Messtasbewusstsein Jesu und seine neueste 
Bestrettung, 25 (1902). 

4H. J. Holtzmann, Das messianische Bewusstsetn Jesu, 1 (1907). 


124 Christ and tbe Critics 


ascended the throne of David. The national temple stood 
under the dominion of the Romans; the Jewish people paid 
to Roman emperors the interest and taxes due to Jehovah; 
the sons of God were conscripted into the legions of the 
pagans and forced to daily defilements and to participation 
in unlawful abominations. Nor was it better in the sphere 
of spiritual religion. The narrow, statutory system of rab- 
binical theology had replaced the elevating religious teaching 
of the Old Testament. The learned Rabbis had, by their 
eternal fault-finding, not only taken the spirit completely out 
of the service of the Law, but had also in part deformed its 
letter, and in part enveloped it with so thick a hull that the 
original kernel could no longer be discerned. Everything 
was ruined.} 

But Israel did not forget her Messianic vocation. All the 
Jews looked with unfaltering confidence for the Messiah, in 
whom their fathers had already believed, and whose portrait 
and appearance the Prophets had delineated in ever clearer 
outlines. The rabbinical interpretation of the Law had even 
increased this longing still more powerfully. The writings 
of the New Testament, as well as the oldest literature of the 
Synagogue, point out to us the impatient expectation of the 
Messiah prevalent among the Israelites contemporary with 
Christ. The history of the Jewish war and of the destruction 
of Jerusalem show that people ran after every phantom of 
the so-called Messiahs, so thoroughly convinced were they of 
the nearness of their Redeemer. For the fulness of time 
had come. All the prophecies ran out about the reign of 
Augustus. 

Then suddenly came the news that in Bethlehem in the 
land of Juda the. “ Messiah,’’ the son of David, the 
anointed of the Lord, had been born—the light to enlighten 
the Gentiles and the honour of the people of Israel. The 
annunciation, the birth, the first years of the child Jesus are 
surrounded by a garland of wonderful events and heavenly 
testimonials, which alone exclude every doubt that the child 
of Bethlehem, so long anticipated, was the divinely sent 
Messiah.? 

This Gospel of the childhood of Jesus is rejected by liberal 
critics simply because, in consequence of its supernatural 
contents, it does not agree with the philosophical views of 
that school of criticism. Reasons of an exegetical-historical 
nature are said to oppose the credibility of the Gospel of 
Christ’s youth. His enemies content themselves with point- 
ing out the supernatural and miraculous elements in it in 
order simply to pronounce the verdict: “We have no 

1 See H. Felder, Die Krisits des religidsen Judentums zur Zett Christi 


(Stans, 1903). 
2 See the first chapters of Matthew and Luke. 


Sntroductory 125 


historical information about the childhood and youth of 
Jesus, for what the Gospels of Matthew and Luke relate of 
them is nothing but religious legends with no historical worth 
whatever—all that belongs to the domain of pious myth, the 
origin of which must be explained by the faith of the 
Church.’’+ In the light of unprejudiced historical research 
the statements of the first and third Gospels concerning the 
youth of Jesus must be recognized as, historically, wholly 
unobjectionable representations. 

Jesus, however, wraps himself in silence even after these 
revelations—with the exception of his unique appearance, 
when twelve years old, in the temple—until the day when he 
publicly enters upon his Messianic vocation and begins to 
bear witness to it. 


1 Otto Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 61, 93 (Miin- 
chen, 1905). 


Gy ga ef OHSS aE 


THE FACT OF CHRIST’S MESSIANIC 
CONSCIOUSNESS 


I.—Tue Messianic TESTIMONY OF JESUS TO HIMSELF IN 
GENERAL. 


ORMER thorough-going rationalists dealt sum- 

marily with the testimony of the Saviour to himself 

as the Messiah. In the good old days when David 

Friedrich Strauss saw in the Gospels only a collec- 

tion of legends and fables, which originated long 
after Christ’s death, and when Ferd. Christian Baur ascribed 
the historical writings of the New Testament, all and singly, 
to a date far in the second century, it was the custom to 
reject every proof of Messianic consciousness, and in general 
every objectionable text of Scripture, with a wave of the hand 
and the simple statement: ‘‘ That is not an utterance of the 
Lord; that is a later addition.’’ We are, it is true, accus- 
tomed also even now to hear such forcible language from 
many a “historical-critical’’ investigator. But it finds no 
longer such a ready acceptance as formerly, since they them- 
selves now concede that the synoptic Gospels were com- 
posed soon after the middle of the first century and even by 
Matthew, Mark and Luke. Since the commencement of this 
“retrograde movement ’’ of Gospel criticism the denial of the 
Messianic consciousness of Jesus has been for the most part 
characteristic only of those radical controversialists who, not- 
withstanding all the signs of the times, have still learned 
nothing from, and forgotten nothing of, the precipitous 
collapse of rationalistic and historical criticism. Only thus 
is it explicable that, after the example of Bruno Bauer, 
Strauss, Volkmar, and A. Jakobsen, many radical critics of 
recent times, such as A. Loman! and A. Bruins? in Holland, 
FE. Havet? in France, James Martineau* in England, G. L. 
Cary® and Nathaniel Schmidt® in America, P. de Lagarde’ 
and Meinhold® in Germany, dispute the Messianic conscious- 
ness of Jesus. But these attempts, as has been said, start 


De Gids, ii, 118 (1888). 
Heeft Jesus sich zelven als den Messias beschouwd ? (1893). 
Le Christianisme et ses Origines, iv, pp. 15, 75 (1884). 
The Seat of Authority in Religion, 326, 349 (1890). 
The Synoptic Gospels, 360 (1900). 
The Prophet of Nazareth, 131 (1905). 
Deutsche Schriften, i, p. 69 (1887). 
Jesus und das Alte Testament, 8g, 101 (1896). 
126 


eSernraar nn Pr 


Fact of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 127 


out with such a destructive criticism of the Gospels, and have 
in themselves so little solid foundation that even the liberal 
school of research would hardly pay serious attention to them 
any longer. 

The question entered an entirely new phase, however, with 
the sensational book of W. Wrede, The Messianic Mystery 
in the Gospels.1 With a rare exhibition of criticism, as intel- 
ligent as it is one-sided, this book seeks to establish the thesis 
that the idea of the Messiahship was inserted only sub- 
sequently into the record of the life of Jesus. 

Partly in connection with Wrede, partly on their own inde- 
pendent lines, these views have been advocated lately by 
Adalbert Merx,* W. Stark,*? Nathaniel Schmidt,* W. B. 
Smith,° Bolliger,® and P. Kélbing.” 

Julius Wellhausen takes his place at least among the 
doubters. According to him, ‘“ Jesus appears to have 
acknowleged himself to be the Messiah in Jerusalem it- 
self.”’> The Saviour has not, however, declared himself as 
the Messiah ‘freely and in plain words,’’ and “ doubts 
whether it ever was done at all cannot be suppressed.’’? 

Yet with all this multiformity of views the above-named 
critics with tolerable unanimity justify their antagonistic 
attitude as follows: According to the representation of the 
Gospels, they say, Jesus sometimes wishes to pass for the 
Messiah, and at other times forbids any mention of his 
Messiahship. This contradiction is explained by the sup- 
position that Messianic ideas were only subsequently ascribed 
to the Saviour. During his lifetime Jesus did not regard 
himself as the Messiah. But after his death the disciples 
imagined that he had risen from the dead, and precisely 
through the fact of that resurrection had become the 
Messiah. If, however, he was actually the Messiah after his 
resurrection, then he had been already during his lifetime on 
the way to the Messiahship. So at all events concluded the 
disciples, and the oldest faith of the Church added that 
Jesus had been the Messiah already during his earthly life, 
and had also professed to be such. The synoptists made 
this belief an enduring one by their writings. Yet in their 
representations the historical substratum, to which the Lord’s 


1 Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht (1901). 

2 Das Evangelium Matthéus (1902); Die Evangelien des Markus und 
Lukas (1905). 

3 Jesu Stellung zum jiidischen Messiasbegriff, Protest. Monatshefte, 
Vi, 291-309 (1902). 

4 The Prophet of Nazareth, 131 (1905). 

5 Der vorchristliche Christus, 71, 81, 88 (1906). 

6 Das Messiasgeheimnis bei Markus, in Schweiz. Theol. Zeitschrift, 
98-132 (1906). 

7 Die geistige Einwirkung der Person Jesu auf Paulus (1906). 

8 [sraelttische und judtische Geschichte, 6th ed., 379. 

9 Linleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, g2; cf. 79-98 (1905). 


128 Christ and the Critics 


Messiahship was unknown, is still always apparent under the 
Messianic retouching furnished by faith. 

So runs this fine hypothesis, so ingeniously worked out. It 
is, however, only “worked out ’’; it is neither an historical 
composition nor an historical pourtrayal. It coincides at once 
with the theory of the Gospels already rejected by us, accord- 
ing to which the Gospels are said to contain, not the real 
history of Jesus, but the history of him in the legendary 
form given it by faith. Yet also, apart from this, that view 
is, even from the standpoint of liberal criticism, wholly 
untenable. 

According to this criticism, as has been said, the Gospels 
(in the present instance the Messianic passages written by 
the Evangelists) merely represent the belief of the disciples 
and the Church in the Messiahship of Jesus. But how is 
this belief to be explained psychologically if Jesus had not 
professed to be the Messiah? 

“The disciples believed in his Messiahship on the ground 
of their belief in his resurrection,’’ it is said. But evidently 
the exact contrary is true. They believed in his resurrection 
because of their belief in his Messiahship. Liberal criticism 
repudiates indeed the reality of the resurrection. According 
to it, the belief in the resurrection is founded on purely sub- 
jective imagination, not upon actual objective appearances 
of Jesus after his death. 

Those fantasies and the belief in the resurrection and 
Messiahship which grew out of them presuppose, however, 
that Jesus, during his life, had spoken to the disciples of 
his Messiahship, and of his resurrection as a proof of 
his Messiahship, and had thereby inflamed their powers of 
imagination. Otherwise, how should this have produced the 
belief in the resurrection and in the Messiah precisely at the 
time when the life of the Master had come to such a tragical 
ending, and when his adherents despaired of him, of his 
cause, and even of themselves? ‘“ Where has anything 
similar occurred in the history of mankind,’’ Harnack himself 
asks, ‘‘ that those who had eaten and drunk with their Master 
and had seen him in the characteristics of his human nature, 
not only proclaimed him as the great prophet and revealer of 
God, but also as the divine director of history, as the 
‘beginning’ of the creation of God and as the spiritual force 
of a new life? . . . That they were able to grasp and firmly 
to hold this sure hope; that in spite of his suffering and death 
they beheld in him the promised Messiah; and that they, 
while under the influence of the usual Messianic conception, 
had felt that he was the Lord and Saviour actually present 
with them, and had taken him into their hearts—that is what 
is astounding !’’* And not only that. We must call it also 


1 Harnack, Wesen des Christentums, 97. 


Fact of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 129 


something problematical and psychologically and historically 
impossible if the disciples’ belief in the Messiah had sprung 
merely from an imaginary resurrection, and if it had subse- 
quently been transferred thence into the life of Jesus. 

Just as little as Wellhausen and Wrede are able to explain 
the origin of the disciples’ belief in the Messiahship, just so 
little can they explain the testimonies of the Gospels to the 
Messiahship. We place ourselves again on the ground of our 
opponents’ criticism of the New Testament. This recognizes 
that the synoptic Gospels, even if they are enlarged by 
legends, nevertheless contain a thoroughly reliable historical 
foundation. Wellhausen and Wrede acknowledge this no 
less positively than Harnack, Schirer, Jiilicher and the whole 
liberal school. 

If, however, one thing in the Gospel is historical, it is 
certainly the fact that Christ considered himself as the 
Messiah, and professed to be so. Johannes Weiss says 
forcibly : ‘“Our best and oldest (Gospel) tradition testifies 
with a hundred voices to the fact that he (Jesus) understood 
the movement which he started as Messianic in the full sense 
of the word, and that he considered himself to be the 
specifically chosen one, who was more than a_ prophet. 
Simply to push aside this whole tradition, or to interpret it 
_ to suit oneself, and to explain everything Messianic out of 
the text is an unheard of abuse of power.’’? 

Like Johannes Weiss, Harnack also declares plainly : ‘‘ Im- 
portant scholars, and among them Wellhausen, have doubted 
whether Jesus ever designated himself as the Messiah. I 
cannot,, however, agree with him; in fact, I find that we 
must do violence to our Gospel reports to reach that desired 
result. Already the expression ‘ Son of Man,’ it seems to me, 
can be understood only in a Messianic sense (that Jesus 
himself used it is not to be doubted), and we should have to 
strike out entirely a story like that of the entry of Christ into 
Jerusalem in order to carry out the theory that he did not 
consider himself as the promised Messiah, and did not wish 
to be so regarded. Moreover, the forms of speech in which 
Jesus expressed his self-consciousness and his vocation are 
quite incomprehensible if they are not determined by the 
Messianic idea. Finally, since the positive reasons, which 
are brought forward for that view, are very weak and in the 
highest degree questionable, we can with confidence adhere 
to the supposition that Jesus has called himself the Messiah.’’? 
“This part of the Gospel narrative appears to me to stand 
the severest examination,’’ adds Harnack in his History of 


1 Die Predigt Jesu vom Retche Gottes, 2nd ed., p. 64 (Gottingen, 
1900). Johannes Weiss also gives a thorough contradiction to Wrede 
in his book Yas diteste Evangelium (1903). 

2 Wesen des Christentums, 82 ff. 


r 9 


130 Christ and the Critics 


Dogma.' ‘“ The backbone of Christianity would be broken, 
if belief in the Messiah were taken from it.’’? 

The recent utterances of Emil Schirer,? Adolf Jilicher,4 
Oskar Holtzmann,* Paul Wernle,® O. Schmiedel,’ Ad. Deiss- 
mann,® A. Schlatter,? Fritz Schubart,1° H. J. Holtzmann,*? 
Loisy'* and other trustworthy representatives of modern 
liberalism?* are just as positive. 

In following out this idea, Wrede also is finally forced to 
go over to the most radical sort of scepticism. In order to 
further his purpose, not only does he refashion the synoptic 
Gospels by designating all their Messianic features as un- 
historical,’* but he says precisely of Mark, the oldest and 
“most reliable’’ of the Evangelists: ‘Mark has no longer 
any real conception of the life of Jesus.’’*° Only by such 
presuppositions can Wrede derive the ‘‘ Messianic mystery 
of the Gospels’’ from “the effort to make the life of Jesus 
on earth Messianic in character.’’!® This critic, therefore, 
willingly or unwillingly, comes back again to the “ tendency ”’ 
hypothesis of Ferd. Christian Baur, and, in fact, “enters once 
more into even Bruno Bauer’s line of argument.’’?7 

The Messianic consciousness and the Messianic testimony 
of Jesus would, however, still be undeniable even if we 
should accede to this destructive criticism of the Gospels, or 
should actually destroy them altogether. The mere fact, 
contested by no one, that the oldest Christian Church held 
Jesus to be the Messiah, would alone prove incontestably that 
Jesus professed to be the Messiah. Wilhelm Bousset well 
says: “One of the positions which appears to be sure and 
impregnable, in spite of multiform controversy and ever- 
repeated examinations, is the fact that Jesus considered him- 
self the Messiah of his people. For our Gospels this pre- 


1 Third edition, i, 62 (1894). 

2 0, Holtzmann, War Jesus Ekstatiker? 133 (1903). 

3 Das messtanische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu Christi, 12 (1903). 

4 Die Religton Jesu und die Anfange des Christentums in Die Kultur 
der Gegenwart, i, abteil 4, 55. 

5 Das Leben Jesu, p. 107 (1901); Das Messiashbewusstsein Jesu und seine 
neueste Bestrettung (1903); War Jesus Ekstatiker? 23, 28, 133 (1903). 

6 Die Anfange unserer Religion, 31 (1904). 

7 Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, and ed., 55-65 (1906). 

8 Evangelium und Urchristentum, 107. 

9 Der Zweifel an der Messianitat Jesu (1907). 

10 Der Messiasglaube der ersten Jiunger in seiner Entwicklung auf 
Grund des synoptischen Selbsizeugnisses Jesu untersucht (1907). 

11 Das messianische Bewusstsein Jesu, 1-39 (1907). 

12 [’Evangile et VEglise, and ed., 19 ff., 104. 

13 The Jew B. Kellermann, A7itische Bettrége zur Entstehungs- 
geschichte des Christentums, g (1906), severely and justly criticizes the 
prejudiced, equivocal work of theological liberalism. 

14 Das Messitasgeheimnis, 30 ff., 47 ff., 61 f., 87 f. 

15 ¢d2,, 129. 16 Wrede, zd., 228. 

17 Heinrich Zimmermann, Der historische Wert der dltesten Ueber- 
lieferung von der Geschichte Jesu im Markusevangelium, 1 ff. (1905). 


Fact of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 131 


supposition is a matter of course . . . but we can gain from 
our assertion a still surer point of departure than a line of 
argument drawn from single passages of the tradition. We 
know positively that from the beginning the belief prevailed 
in the Christian Church that Jesus was the Messiah, and, 
reasoning backwards, we can maintain that the origin of this 
belief is simply inexplicable if Jesus had not acknowledged 
to his disciples during his lifetime that he was the Messiah. 
For it is indeed comprehensible that the earliest disciples of 
Jesus, all of whose hopes had been shattered by his death 
and burial, and all of whose notions of the Messiahship of 
Jesus had been destroyed, should have returned to the belief 
that Jesus was the Messiah under the impression of their 
experiences with their risen Lord, if they had acquired this 
belief earlier on the ground of the utterances and conduct of 
Jesus. But it remains wholly inexplicable how this belief 
could have originated among the disciples as something new 
after the catastrophe. One must, then, suppose that those 
wonderful experiences during the days of Easter created 
something absolutely new in their souls in a purely super- 
natural way and without any psychological means. But 
precisely from a strictly historical point of view, this cannot 
be accepted. From this retrospective consideration we arrive 
at the result that Jesus, in some form or other, must have 
considered himself as the Messiah, and must have imparted 
this conviction to the disciples also. ... It will become 
more and more evident that it is wholly useless to try to 
invalidate by criticism this point of Christian tradition.’’! 

In spite, therefore, of Wellhausen, Wrede and those who 
agree with them, the fact may be accepted by both friend and 
foe that Jesus did bear witness to himself as the Messiah. 

On the other hand, most of the modern critics contest the 
statement that he knew himself to be the Messiah and 
testified to that fact from the beginning of his public 
activity. Jiilicher, for example, affirms that “It is hardly 
true that Jesus from the very beginning felt himself to be 
the Messiah, or destined later to become so.’’? Pfleiderer? 
writes categorically : “It 1s certain, in any case, that Jesus 
did not make his appearance at the outset with the Messianic 
claims.’’ Paul Wernle thinks that ‘‘ It would indeed be too 
much to deny to him a belief in his Messianic vocation, but 
how and from what point of time he considered himself as 
the Messiah . . . these are questions which we can answer 
only partially and approximately.’’* 

For the most part, it is asserted that Jesus confessed him- 
self positively to be the Messiah only towards the end of his 
life, or for the first time before his judges. In this sense 

1 Jesus, 3rd ed., 77 ff. (Tubingen, 1907). PAC Te Dea 
Pa ,5 Pp’ 100, 4 Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu, 83 (Tiibingen, 1906). 


132 Christ and the Critics 


Loisy says: ‘‘ It seems indubitable that the Saviour was con- 
demned to death because he made claims to the kingdom of 
Israel—that is, to the character of the Messiah. Yet, as far 
as one can conclude from the memorials of tradition, this 
occurred first before the High Priest and then before Pilate.’’* 
“In the course of his activity Jesus did not preach in order 
to inform people of his Messianic character, nor did he 
perform his miracles as proofs of his Messiahship.’’? Ac- 
cording to Bousset also: “‘ The activity of Jesus was not in 
any way decidedly Messianic. Perhaps it was first at the 
entry into Jerusalem that Jesus proclaimed himself to the 
people as the Messiah.’’? Still more positively does E. von 
Hartmann inform us that “in the first period (of his public 
activity) he is only the prophet of the approaching end of the 
world and kingdom of God, and there is wanting in him... . 
at first, all consciousness of his Messiahship. Only at the 
conclusion of the first period does this idea begin gradually 
to take root in him, but even in the second period he alludes 
to it only indirectly at first, and seeks in the judgement of 
others a confirmation of the fact. In the third period he 
proclaims himself the Messiah, first before his disciples and 
then openly before the tribunal.’’* 

It will be shown later, in connection with the inquiry into 
the origin of Christ’s Messianic consciousness, why modern 
rationalism lays such great stress upon this belated testimony 
of the Saviour to his Messiahship. Meanwhile, it is possible 
for us, by use of the Gospels, to bring proof of the contrary, 
and to disclose the different degrees of Christ’s revelation of 
himself as the Messiah. 


I].—ANNOUNCEMENT OF CHRIST’S TESTIMONY TO HIMSELF 
AS THE MESSIAH. 


In this connection we must go back to the appearance of 
the forerunner. The preaching and baptism of John indicate 
with such definiteness the nearness of the Messiah and his 
kingdom (Matt. i, 1-12; Mark i, 1-8; Luke iii, 2-18) that 
the multitudes surmised that the Baptist himself was the 
Saviour, and a formal delegation of the Sanhedrim went to 
him to learn the real facts of the case (John i, 19). “I am 
not the Messiah,’’ John declares positively, “ but there hath 
stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. The 
same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before 
me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose ’’— 
the intensely longed-for Messiah. 


1 L’Evangile et VEglise, p. 52 (Paris, 1902). Also see Loisy in his 
Les Evangtles synoptiques, i, 192,(Macon, 1907). 

2 Autour @un petit livre, 83 (Paris, 1903). 3 Jesus fi 

4 Das Christentum des neuen Testaments, 55 (Sachsa, 1905). 


Fact of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 133 


Soon after, Jesus presents himself for baptism. John 
recognizes in him the one sent by God (Matt. iii, 13-15). 
Heaven opens. The Spirit of God descends upon Jesus in 
the form of a dove, and from above the voice of the Father 
is heard clearly and distinctly : ‘‘ This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased’’ (Matt. iii, 16 and parallels). It 
cannot be doubted that Jesus saw in this procedure the 
Messianic spiritual consecration and the recognition of him- 
self as the Messiah by the heavenly Father (Luke iv, 18; 
Isa. Ixi, 1; Matt. xii, 18; Isa. xl, 1-4; Acts x, 38). It will be 
shown later that the expression “ Son of God,’’ in its applica- 
tion to Jesus, and in the mouth of Jesus himself, denotes, if 
not always his divinity, yet always at least his Messiahship. 

It has this meaning also in the history of the temptation, 
which immediately follows the baptism. The tempter sup- 
poses and fears in Jesus the existence of the Messiah, the 
Son of God. Yet he wishes first to assure himself of this. 
“Tf thou art the Son of God—that is, at least, the Messiah— 
prove thyself to be so by thy works. The Saviour is pre- 
dicted as being a miracle-worker; work, then, his miracles! 
The Messiah is expected to be the destroyer of the satanic 
power over the world, and the founder of a universal king- 
dom of God; hence, receive from my hands the kingdoms of 
the world!’ That is, in substance, the language of the 
tempter. Jesus indignantly repudiates the impostures of 
Satan, but he silently accepts for himself the Messianic title 
“Son of God’’ (Matt. iv, 1-11 and parallels). 

The Messiahship of Jesus forms, therefore, the very 
essence of the first episodes of the public life of Jesus. 
John the Baptist announces and acknowledges Jesus as the 
Messiah; heaven consecrates him and equips him audibly 
and visibly with the means to be the Messiah; the spirits 
also fear him and testify to him as the Messiah; and Jesus 
himself in all this possesses the calm consciousness of his 
Messianic dignity and mission. 

Liberal investigators, of course, explain this prelude of the 
Messianic revelation of Jesus in such a way that the miracu- 
lous and supernatural disappear from it altogether. They 
assume, for this purpose, that it is a question here merely 
of a vision, in which the supernatural occurrences at the 
baptism and temptation took place only in the mind of Jesus. 
But the question whether it was a vision or an affair of the 
senses, does not affect our problem at all. That the accounts 
of the baptism and temptation are genuine, and that Jesus 
appears in them as the Messiah, is universally conceded. We 
shall later establish the fact that our opponents, with the 
exception of the extremest radicals, are forced to the con- 
fession that Jesus really reveals at the very outset of his 
career a positive Messianic consciousness. 


134 Christ and the Critics 


In this sense Harnack writes: ‘‘ The oldest tradition saw 
in a spiritual experience of Jesus on the occasion of his 
baptism the foundation of his Messianic consciousness. We 
cannot verify it, but we are still less able to contradict it; 
it is rather entirely probable that, when he made his public 
appearance, he was fully convinced on that point. The 
Gospels place the remarkable history of the temptation of 
Jesus before the beginning of his public activity. This pre- 
supposes that he already knew himself to be the Son of God 
and the one entrusted with a definite work for the people of 
God, and that he withstood the temptations which were 
intimately connected with this consciousness.’”? 

Now begins also the first indication of his Messianic 
proclamation—at first only a gleam, as of the dawn. At 
the beginning “ Jesus*naturally observed a modest reticence 
about this mystery of his person and this sublime faith in 
himself.’’? But he had especially to take into consideration 
the capacity of apprehension in those about him and their 
Messianic ideas and preconceived notions, in spite of the 
fact, and indeed precisely because of it, that he did not share 
these notions. The necessity of reckoning with the ingrained, 
misguided conception of the Messiah, characteristic of the 
Judaism of the Synagogue and the Rabbis—that is the 
point of view from which the whole testimony of Jesus to 
himself as the Messiah must be judged. The defenders of 
the Messiahship of Jesus have not sufficiently considered this. 
On the other hand, all the difficulties of our opponents, who 
deny wholly or in part the Messianic testimony of Jesus to 
himself, would find their solution from this point of view. 
Only thus, indeed, can it be understood why Jesus appears 
to wish sometimes to proclaim and sometimes to conceal his 
Messiahship ; why he speaks of it so clearly at one time and 
with so much reserve at another; and why, after such vast 
efforts, he still finds so little faith. 

Consideration of the popular views about the Messiah 
determined him, already on his first appearance, to adopt the 
title of the Son of Man. G. Volkmar,? W. Brandt,‘ Lietz- 
mann® and J. Wellhausen® try to prove that Jesus has not 
himself assumed the designation of the Son of Man, but has 
only received this title owing to the subsequent transformation 
of the Gospel history by believers. Yet this view not only 
rests on a wholly distorted criticism of the Gospels, but has 


1 Wesen des Christentums, 88. 

* Heinrich Weinel, Jesus im XIX Jahrhundert, 109 (Tiibingen, 1907). 

3 Die Evangelien, oder Markus und die Synopsis, 197 (Leipzig, 1860) 
Jesus Nazarenus, p. 153 (Ztirich, 1882). 

4 Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christentums, 
562 (1893). 5 Der Menschensohn (Tiibingen, 1806). 

6 Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten, vi (Berlin, 1899); Das Evangelium Marci, 
66 (Berlin, 1903); Hinlettung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 2nd ed., 
123-130 (Berlin, 1911). 


3 


fact of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 135 


also been rejected by chosen experts in this field for the very 
philological reasons on which that criticism thought it could 
support itself. As a matter of fact, Jesus calls himself, from 
the very outset and down to his condemnation by the Sanhe- 
drim, continually and by preference the Son of Man (Matt. 
xxvi, 64; Mark xiv, 62; Luke xxii, 69), The name “ Son of 
Man ”’’ occurs thirty-two times in Matthew, fourteen in Mark, 
twenty-five in Luke, and eleven times in John. Outside of the 
Gospels it is found only three times in the New Testament 
writings,” and also in the Gospels no one but the Saviour 
gives himself this title. He never receives it from his 
disciples.* 

This name did not have the national and political signifi- 
cance which the other Messianic titles had by degrees 
acquired, such as “ Christ’’ (Messiah, the Anointed), “ Son 
of David,’’ “ Prince of Peace’’ and “ King of Israel.’’ For 
that very reason, also, it did not excite, as the others did, 
national hopes and passions.* It was thus best adapted to 
become representative of the Messianic views of Jesus, and a 
token of his silent, gradual revelation of himself. 

In the Aramaic mother-tongue of Jesus, “Son of Man”’ 
(baynasa) meant certainly merely a man. But ever since the 
prophecy of Daniel (vii, 13) it had signified also the Messiah, 
as he had been heralded in advance in the holy Scripture of 
the Old Testament as the founder and Prince of the Messianic 
kingdom, who was at some time to come again in the clouds 
of heaven. Both interpretations were well known to the 
people.® 

Now, because Jesus called himself the Son of Man in 
contrast to all other men, he evidently did not understand the 
word in its first meaning. He did not call himself “ man ’’ in 
the general and usual sense of that word, but in the particular 
sense connected with the Messianic passage in Daniel.® More- 
over, from the first day on, he himself declared unequivocally 
that he applied to himself the title of Son of Man in a Mes- 
sianic sense (cf. John i, 41, 45 and 49 with John i, 51). As 


1S. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 191-219 (Leipzig, 1898); P. Fiebig, Der 
Menschensohn (Tiibingen, 1901); Fritz Tillmann, Der Menschensohn, 
60-147 (Freiburg, 1907). 

2 Acts vii, 56; Apoc. i, 13 and xiv, 14. 

3 For the reasons of this, see Tillmann, Der Menschensohn, 169-176. 

4H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 436 (Gottingen, 1901); Weizsacker, Das 
apostolische Zettalter, 106 (Tiibingen, 1902); B. Weiss, Lehrbuch der 
btblischen Theologte des N. T., 55 (Berlin, 1895). : 

5 For the proof of this double signification of the expression barnasa 
and its use, see G. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, i, 191-217; P. Fiebig, 
Der Menschensohn, 56; Tillmann, Der Menschensohn, 60-106. 

6 See Dalman, 7d., 210, 217; H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der N. T. 
Theologie, 250 (1897); W. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 
169 (1892); J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 160 (1900) ; 
H. H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 426; Derambure, Le Fils de Phomme 
dans les Evangiles in Revue Augustin,, 708-720 (1908) and 319-340 (1909). 


136 Christ and the Critics 


his activity progressed he concentrated into this title, as we 
shall see, an ever-greater amount of dignity, character, deeds 
of benevolence, rights and the vocation of the teaching, work- 
ing, suffering and glorified Messiah. 

Also extreme liberal critics like Renan,! Harnack,? Loisy,? 
H. J. Holtzmann* and others acknowledge that the name Son 
of Man in the mouth of Jesus is undoubtedly Messianic in 
meaning. Tillmann, after deep research, comes to the result 
that “no passage referring to the Son of Man is free from 
a Messianic meaning, and that by far the greater number of 
them allow this interpretation only.’’® 

Jesus’ testimony to himself as the Son of Man was, there- 
fore, equivalent to testimony to himself as the Messiah. The 
Son of Man ascribes to himself absolutely the vocation and 
the dignity of the Messiah, although he does not at first bear 
the name Messiah. Indeed, precisely because he claimed to 
be the Messiah was he at the outset obliged to renounce the 
use of the name in public. 

In any case, the name Messiah-Christ was not necessarily 
connected with the plan of salvation promised in the Old 
Testament. In consequence of their being anointed, kings 
and priests had always borne this name. And because the 
future Saviour was to be Priest and King in the full sense of 
the word, this designation also suited him pre-eminently. It 
is, however, given to him only three times in the whole Old 
Testament.® Only shortly before the dawn of the Christian 
era,’ and only together with other titles (“Son of David,”’ 
“ King of Israel’’) was the expression “‘ Messiah’’ made one 
of the official titles of the expected Saviour.* Precisely at 
this time, however, there came at length to be connected with 
the name Messiah an idea which compromised the Messianic 
cause itself. 

In the popular imagination the Messiah was, first of all, a 
political liberator. As the Son of David, he was, by his mere 
appearance, to shatter with one blow the Roman yoke, re- 
establish the Jewish throne, and, as King of Israel, lead the 
people of the Law, and the life according to the Law, to 
triumph. Where such a frame of mind was prevalent it 
needed only a breath to cause the flame of national aspiration 
to flare up at once. A popular rumour of the presence of the 
Messiah—that is, of the national hero—would be sufficient to 


1 Vie de Jésus, 93 (Berlin, 1863). * Wesen des Christentums, 82. 

3 Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 1093. 

4 Das messianische Bewusstsein Jesu, 50-75 (Tiibingen, 1907). 

b ads, 147% PAT aepaes li, .10;‘Ps. 11,23: Damegeeees 

7 Psalms of Solomon xvii, 36; xviii, 6, 8; "A poc. of Baruch, XXxIX,.7 5 
4 EL ey ak igh 

8 S, Philipp Friedrich, Der Christusname tm Lichte der alt- und 
neutest. Theologie, 29 ff. (Céln, 1905); Lagrange, Le Messianisme chez 
les Jutfs, 213 (Paris, 19009). 

9 The proof of this is given in the next chapter. 


Fact of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 137 


kindle boundless political enthusiasm and call forth a general 
“Messianic ’’ revolution. 

Willingly or unwillingly, Jesus would have been forced into 
the leadership of this if he had simply called himself the 
Messiah. A fatal conflict with the authorities would have put 
a precipitous ending to his scarcely begun career and frus- 
trated his whole work. Jesus would have been at once con- 
demned, as, indeed, finally was the case, by the Jewish 
Sanhedrim and Roman tribunal; by the former under the 
charge of having been unable to prove himself the Messiah- 
King; by the latter under the pretext of having wished to 
prove himself the Messiah-King. In order to escape this 
premature catastrophe, he prevented the too precipitate pro- 
clamation of his Messiahship, and himself avoided assuming 
the name Messiah. 

It is true the first disciples, overpowered by the impression 
produced by his language and his personality, suspect in him 
at once the Messiah, and give him the Messianic title. ‘‘ We 
have found the Messiah!’’ cries out Andrew to his brother 
Simon, after his first meeting with Jesus (John i, 41). ‘We 
have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets 
did write,’’ announces Philip to Nathanael (John i, 45). And 
shortly after his meeting with Jesus, Nathanael also con- 
fesses : “ Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King 
of Israel ’’ (John i, 49). 

The demons also seek to proclaim his Messiahship through 
the mouths of those they possessed. For “they knew him ”’ 
(Mark i, 34), ‘‘ they knew that he was the Messiah” (Luke 
iv, 41), ‘the Holy One of God,’ “the Anointed One of 
God,’’ the “ Son of God,’’ the ‘“ Son of the most high God,”’ 
who had come to destroy them.? 

Jesus accepts with joy the acknowledgement of the first 
disciples, although, as it proved later, it was only a joyful 
expression of faith and hope that the Master would prove 
himself to be the Messiah (John 1, 50). Yet he substitutes for 
the titles ‘“‘ Messiah,’’ the “ Prophet’’ and “‘ King of Israel ’’ 
(to the Jews all these had the same significance) the title “ Son 
of Man.’’ Also, he does not contradict the utterances of the 
devils, although he admonishes them severely not to proclaim 
him publicly as the Messiah. 

Modern critics are greatly shocked at these prohibitions of 
Jesus, and Wellhausen and Wrede conclude from them that 
Jesus never felt himself to be the Messiah, while other 
adherents of the liberal school maintain that at least at the 
beginning of his career he had not yet believed in his Messiah- 
ship. 

1 “ That the devils recognize in Jesus the Messiah is now in any case 


seldom contested.”? Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimniss, 24. he 
BoMark J, 24} 111, 123 v,°7; Luke iv, 34, 413.vill, 28; Matt. vi11,_20. 


138 Christ and the Critics 


Yet the very contrary is evident from the conduct of the 
Saviour in this regard. He did not forbid the publication of 
the testimony of the devils to his Messiahship because he did 
not consider it to be true, but precisely because he did consider 
it true. The Evangelists mention expressly that ‘‘ he suffered 
not the devils to speak, because they knew him’’ (Mark 1, 34). 
“And rebuking them, he suffered them not to speak, for 
they knew that he was Christ’’ (Luke iv, 41). “ He strictly 
charged them that they should not make him known’’ (Mark 
lil, 12). 

san therefore, does not repudiate faith in his Messiah- 
ship, but forbids the publication of it, the spreading of the 
report that he was the Messiah in the sense in which the 
people had been waiting for their Christ so long and so im- 
patiently. By a quiet, intensive mode of education, Jesus 
wanted to convince, first his disciples, and then the wider 
circle of his associates, of his Messiahship, his supernatural 
Messianic nature and his spiritual Messianic vocation. Belief 
in him as the Messiah was to originate and become purified 
from within, and by reason of actual proofs; and his disciples 
and the people were, from his own words and, above all, from 
his works, to come gradually to the conviction that he was 
the Messiah, even though he did not usher in the hoped-for 
Messianic revolution. + 


III.—DEVELOPMENT OF CHRIST’S TESTIMONY TO HIMSELF AS 
THE MESSIAH. 


In order to render the minds of the people more receptive, 
Jesus starts out immediately from the standpoint of the 
preaching of the Baptist: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of 
Heaven is at hand’”’ (Mark iv, 17). The announcement of 
the kingdom of Heaven—that is, of the kingdom of the 
Messiah—forms the substance of his Galilean activity. 

But how entirely different this message of the Son of Man 
sounds from that of the forerunner! Above the Son of Man 
heaven stands open, and the angels of God ascend and descend 
above his head (John i, 51). The Son of Man has himself 
descended from heaven, and will return thither again (John 
ill, t anid V4, 132) \93); 

The Son of Man claims for himself, therefore, the whole 
spiritual dignity and spiritual task of his vocation of the 
Messiah, prophesied by Isaias (Ixi, 1; Luke iv, 18). The Son 
of Man is come to proclaim the Gospel of the kingdom of God 
(Mark i, 38), to call sinners to his kingdom (Matt. ix, 13), 


1 Weizsadcker says pertinently, Das apostolische Zeitalter der christ- 
lichen Kirche, p. 106 (1902): ‘‘ It is on the whole to be concluded from 
the whole course of the history of Jesus that he did not at first present 
himself to his countrymen as the Messiah, but rather led them on to 
accept him as such themselves.”’ 


fact of Christ’s Messtanic Conscfousness 13, 


and to save the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matt. 
xv, 24). On this account the Son of Man speaks—as a teacher, 
with absolute authority (Matt. v, 22, 28, 32-44) and as one 
who has superior force, unexampled wisdom and divine power 
(Matt. vii, 29; Mark i, 22). 

The Son of Man is not bound by the Law of Moses (Matt. 
xii, 8). In contrast to this Law and to the Old Testament, 
the Son of Man, in his parables, discourses, and, above all, in 
his Sermon on the Mount, announces the Law of the Messianic 
kingdom (Matt. v, 1-7, 29). If the kingdom of the Son of 
Man is superior to the Synagogue of the Old Testament, 
it forms, on the other hand, a complete antithesis to the 
kingdom of Satan. An insult to the Son of Man is equivalent 
to blasphemy (Matt. xii, 31). The Son of Man will return at 
the end of the world to act as Judge over the kingdom of God 
(Matt. xiii, 37, 41).* 

To strengthen and to seal his supernatural Messianic 
mission and preaching, the Son of Man also performs the 
miraculous works, which were prophesied of the Messiah, 
and served as evidence of his Messiahship. He subdues the 
elements, heals the sick, frees those possessed of devils, raises 
the dead, remits sins and performs new miracles in order to 
prove his full authority to forgive sins (Matt. ix, 1-8; Mark 
li, 1-12; Luke v, 17-26). A continual, positive and over- 
powering revelation of his Messtahship! 

It is true he also often seeks to prevent the publication of these 
Messianic deeds,” in order to free himself of any appearance 
of vanity, and always in order not to stir up political Messianic 
enthusiasm. How well grounded this foresight was is shown 
on the occasion of the first multiplication of the loaves of 
bread (John vi, 14). Moreover, in the working of his miracles 
the chief point was not to endanger the Messianic cause by a 
storm of enthusiasm, but to change the minds of the people 
by a continual definite work, and to capture, as it were, one 
position after another (see John vii, 3-6). In this way, how- 
ever, all the people gradually learned to know him as a worker 
of miracles, and were able to conclude from his works that he 
was the divinely sent Christ,* although this Messiah did not 
correspond to the national expectations of the masses. 

Jesus also recalls this to the mind of the impatiently 
expectant Baptist, who had sent to him from his prison the 
inquiry: “Art thou he that art to come, or look we for 
another?’’ Jesus answers: ‘“‘Go and relate to John what 
you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the 


1 The later utterances on the Parousia we pass over here because at 
present we have to do merely with the Galilean period. 

auMatt tvill, 2;)ix, 30; Mark.i, 439. v, 433° Vil, 363 vill, 26: Luke 
Waptas. Vili, (56. 

PMID V, 205 Win 2S 1X, 25k, 26-38 = Riv, 103 XV; 24: 


140 Christ and the Critics 


poor have the Gospel preached to them’’ (Matt. xi, 2-16; 
Luke vii, 18-23). 

These words of Jesus to the disciples of John are only the 
repetition of the words of Isaias, in which he depicts the 
blessings of the Messianic period (Isa. xxix, 18; xxxv, 2; 
Ixi, 1). The main thought in the answer of Jesus is, therefore, 
this: ‘Compare what the Prophets, especially Isaias, have 
predicted of the Messiah with what you see me do, and then 
decide for yourself whether I am the Messiah or not.’’ The 
proof is convincing and compelling for one who is acquainted 
with the Prophets, recognizes their truth and has an open 
eye and ear. The Lord concludes this solemn testimony to 
his own person with the serious, significant words: “ And 
blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.’’ Blessed 
is he who shall not be offended in the Messiah, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the expected, popular Messianic deeds and 
the national and political rebellion and liberation are not 
accomplished. For this one thing was the stumbling-block. 
All else agreed with the predictions; all the proofs of his 
Messiahship had been furnished by him a hundred times. One 
thing only was lacking—the great political act, which the 
narrow-mindedness and blindness of the Jews regarded as the 
special work of the Messiah. But he could not effect this bold 
stroke without becoming a traitor to his spiritual Messianic 
dignity and task. He could not declare himself to be the 
Messiah in the sense in which the people wanted to have the 
Messiah. 

On the other hand, however, the people could not be 
induced to recognize his Messiahship. They praised God, it 
is true, for his wonderful deeds, and said: ‘‘ A great prophet 
is risen up among us, and God hath visited his people’’ 
(Luke vii, 16). “A great prophet’’—that was about the idea 
of him that was generally held. Some said that John the 
Baptist, who had just been beheaded, had risen from the 
dead; others that Elias had appeared, who, according to 
Jewish tradition, was to be the forerunner of the Messiah; 
while others still declared that one of the old Prophets, 
perhaps Jeremias, “had arisen’? (Luke ix, 8, 19; Matt. 
xvi, 14). Only occasionally did anyone ask in astonishment : 
“Ts not this the Son of David?’’ (Matt. xii, 23). ‘Son of 
David, have mercy on us,’’ was the cry of the two blind men 
of Capharnaum and of the Canaanite woman (Matt. ix, 27; 
vig 2). 

These utterances of the people certainly show also that some 
classes of the population were already near believing in the 
Messiahship of Jesus. In Samaria, which did not share the 
political ideas of the Jews regarding the Messiah, Jesus could, 
without danger, expressly declare himself to be the Messiah, 
and found many who believed in him (John iv, 39-42). Indi- 


Fact of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 141 


viduals also, and entire families from among his Jewish 
hearers, joined immediately the number of his disciples (John 
iv, 53). Under the impression produced by his miracles, great 
multitudes of people thought, for a time at least, that they 
had discovered in him the coming Christ* (John ii, 23), 
although his own relatives refused to believe in him (John 
vii, 5). After the multiplication of the loaves at Bethsaida 
the people felt such enthusiasm that they cried out: “ This is 
truly that Prophet that should come into the world’’—the 
Messiah. And they “ wanted to take him by force and make 
him king ’’ (John vi, 14 and 15); that is, to proclaim him the 
Messianic national hero. 

Only under the condition that he would carry out the 
definite ‘“‘ Messianic ’’ revolution of the State were the people 
ready to recognize his Messiahship. How little reliance, 
anyhow, could be placed upon the belief of the crowd, and 
even on that of the larger circle of his disciples, was shown 
at the conclusion of the Galilean period of his life. As soon 
as Jesus put the coarse-minded notions of that larger circle 
to the test, most of them fell away. Only the Twelve held 
out through the crisis and remained steadfast (John vi, 66, 
67, 70). 

Among the twelve disciples faith had indeed taken root 
more and more deeply. As we have seen already, from the 
beginning the original disciples had shown a disposition to 
believe.” It would, in fact, be absolutely unthinkable that 
without such a disposition they would have followed the 
Saviour. The first miracle at Cana also confirmed them in 
their conviction (John ii, 11). 

Yet the way to a positive, immutable and supernatural faith 
in his Messiahship was still a long one. For a long time yet 
they had to learn in the Messianic school of Jesus. Only little 
by little did their minds open to the mysteries of the kingdom 
of God, which the Master revealed frankly and confidentially 
to them, in contrast to the mass of the people, so far, indeed, 
as their powers of comprehension sufficed (Matt. xiii, 10-12; 
Mark iv, 11). All the infinite patience of the Lord was neces- 
sary in order not to despair of their progress (Mark iv, 13, 40; 
vi, 50; vil, 18). Nevertheless, their faith grew stronger from 


1 A comparison of this passage with Matt. xvi, 13-15 and John vii, 12 
proves certainly that there cannot have been a complete conviction and 
belief on the part of the masses. 

2 John i, 37; F. Spitta in Das Johannes-Evangelium als Quelle der 
Geschichte Jesu, p. 424 (Gottingen, 1910), remarks with reason: ‘‘ The 
assertion that the disciples of Jesus had recognized him as the Messiah 
first at Cesarea Philippi, and that the Baptist had proved by his 
question (Matt. xi, 3 and Luke vii, 19) that he could not have recognized 
him as the Messiah, rests upon incompetent investigation. By the 
synoptists nothing is reported differing from what we find in the 
Fourth Gospel—viz., that the Messiahship of Jesus became manifest 
from the time of his baptism.” 


142 Christ and the Critics 


day to day, incited, above all, by the unbroken series of his 
miracles. In their astonishment at the stilling of the waves, 
they fell at the feet of Jesus and cried out : “ Of a truth thou 
art the Son of God!’’ Moreover, they proved, immediately 
afterwards, that this had not been merely an act of passing 
enthusiasm, but the expression of a profound conviction. 

It was at Cesarea Philippi, quite at the conclusion of the 
Galilean teaching and activity, that Jesus put to them the 
searching question : ‘‘ Who do men say that the Son of Man 
is?’’ But they said, “‘ Some John the Baptist, and other some 
Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the Prophets,’’ who, 
according to Jewish opinion, was to precede the Messiah. 
He saith unto them: ‘‘ But whom do you say that I am?”’ 
And he receives for the first time from the mouth of Peter 
the positive answer: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living 
God.’’ In his joy over this confession Jesus pronounced him 
blessed. ‘‘ Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh 
and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is 
in heaven ’’ (Matt. xvi, 13-19). 

Peter was not offended in regard to the Messiah, notwith- 
standing the fact that he did not see him establishing the 
material Messianic kingdom. Hence the blessing. The other 
disciples also were now already equally advanced in the faith 
(John vi, 69). Jesus was to them the Messiah, the Son of the 
living God, although he still was not a Jewish Messianic king. 
But that he would eventually become such a king and would 
thus fulfil his essential task, as the Messiah in the Jewish 
sense, they all still held for certain. 


IV.—CoMPLETION OF CHRIST’S OWN TESTIMONY TO HIS 
MESSIAHSHIP. 


And now there began a new phase in Christ’s testimony 
to himself as the Messiah. The disciples recognized his 
Messianic dignity and his Messianic character. They also 
believed in his absolutely supernatural origin and nature, 
although as yet they had not, as we shall see later on, entirely 
clear ideas about his divinity. On the other hand, they con- 
ceived of the vocation of the Messiah in itself and in its realiza- 
tion in Jesus quite erroneously. It was most difficult to free 
them from the idea that the Messiah was to appear radiantly 
in worldly power and splendour on the throne of David. 

Hence Jesus, from now on (1.e., after the confession of 
Peter), began to show to his disciples that he must go up to 
Jerusalem and suffer much from the Elders, the Scribes, and 
the High Priests, and must be put to death, and on the third 
day rise again (Matt. xvi, 21), and thus “ enter into his glory ”’ 
(Luke xxiv, 26). 

Formerly he had referred to the sufferings of the Messiah 


Fact of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 143 


only transiently and figuratively (Mark ii. 19 and parallels). 
But now that the disciples believed on him, even though 
they still mistakenly identified his Messianic vocation with 
a brilliant political achievement, he taught them that the 
Messiah’s work reaches its climax in suffering and death and 
in the glorification ensuing therefrom. ‘This thought fills 
almost the whole last part of the Gospels. And as he holds 
up the spiritual and suffering Messiah in contrast to the 
political Messiah, so does he set up, by word and deed (John 
XVlli, 36), in contrast to the worldly and secularized Messianic 
kingdom, the religious and supernatural kingdom of God, 
which will be developed from the smallest beginnings to world- 
wide and heaven-high dimensions, and is not, as the Jews 
supposed, to be conjured up at one stroke. From the day of 
Cesarea Philippi on, the teaching of Jesus to his disciples is 
concerned with this transformation and rectification of the 
Messianic faith and the Messianic idea. 

The success was not very pronounced. Even Peter, who 
on that day had distinguished himself so brilliantly, was the 
first who earnestly reproached the Saviour for his idea of 
suffering (Matt. xvi, 22; Mark viii, 32), and who, even in the 
hours of his Passion, thought the time had arrived to strike 
a blow for the political kingdom of the Messiah (Luke xxii, 49; 
Matt, xxvi, 51, etc.). The two sons of Zebedee, James and 
John, disputed, even at a late hour in Christ’s life, about the 
most influential and honourable positions in the Messianic 
kingdom (Mark x, 37, 45; Matt. xx, 20-28). Yes, even after 
the resurrection the disciples will not understand the teach- 
ing about the suffering Saviour (Luke xxiv, 20-27), and the 
old catchword still prevails among them, that now at last, and 
now at once, must come the Messianic liberation from the 
Roman yoke (Luke xxiv, 21), and the Messianic re-establish- 
ment of the kingdom of Israel (Acts i, 6). Jesus had 
explained to them plainly and forcibly the whole doctrine of 
his spiritual Messianic vocation and work, but, though they 
knew this doctrine, they did not yet apprehend it. 

From this intellectual standpoint of the disciples we now 
understand also the simultaneous attitude of Jesus towards 
the people after the conclusion of his Galilean activity. How- 
ever little understanding the disciples may have shown of the 
revelation of his Messianic vocation, they yet believed, with 
a few vacillations (John xvi, 30), absolutely in his Messiah- 
ship. But in the great majority of the people both faith and 
understanding were still wanting. Even the more progres- 
sive among them doubted whether they had before them the 
Messiah or only a prophet. Consequently Jesus could not yet 
openly say to the crowd either that he was the Messiah, or, 
still less, that he was the suffering Messiah and that his 
kingdom was wholly spiritual. 


144 Cbrist and the Critics 


Upon the confession of Peter, therefore, he again enjoins 
upon the disciples to wait awhile for the public announcement 
of his Messiahship (Matt. xvi, 20). Soon after occurred the 
Transfiguration on Mount Thabor, glorified by the voice of 
his Father in the presence of the pillars of the Law and the 
prophets. Nothing was more calculated to confirm the dis- 
ciples in their faith in his Messianic vocation. Yet Jesus at 
once repeats his positive prohibition to speak to anyone of 
this Messianic manifestation until the Son of Man should have 
risen from the dead (Mark ix, 6 and parallels)—that is, until 
he should have passed through suffering and humiliation into 
glory, and thus should have proved unmistakably that he was 
the Messiah and that only the spiritual idea of the Messiah is 
the correct one. 

Yet even if the keeping secret of the name of Messiah 
from the people was still always enjoined, Jesus nevertheless 
preached his Messianic mission always more and more clearly 
during the last period of his activity. 

Scarcely had Peter at Cesarea Philippi confessed the faith 
of the disciples in his Messiahship, when Jesus coilected “ the 
people also with the disciples’’ and addressed to “all’’ the 
burning words: ‘‘ Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake 
and the Gospel shall save it. . . . He that shall be ashamed 
of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful genera- 
tion, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when he 
shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels ”’ 
(Mark viii, 34-38). And another time, “when great multi- 
tudes stood about him, so that they trod one upon another, he 
began to say . . . Whosoever shall confess me before men, 
him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of 
God, but he that shall deny me before men, shall be denied 
before the angels of God’’ (Luke xii, 1 and 8, 9). In this and 
similar ways does he proclaim himself before all to be the One 
sent by God, upon the faithful recognition or denial of whom 
depends eternal salvation or eternal condemnation. 

The more plain, emphatic and public his testimony to him- 
self as the Messiah becomes, the more evident also becomes 
the miraculous Messianic proof of the absolute reliability of 
his testimony. If previously he had somewhat limited the 
publication of his miracles “ because his hour was not yet 
come ’’ (John vii, 6)—the hour of his suffering and of his glori- 
fication (John vii, 30)—towards the end of his activity he more 
and more dispenses with those former precautions. He no 
longer forbids people to spread abroad the fame of his works, 
and performs his mighty deeds, for the most part, before 
great multitudes and before the priests, the Scribes and the 
Pharisees; in fact, even in the temple itself at Jerusalem 
(Matt. xii, 9; Mark xi, 15; Luke xix, 45). And he continually 
characterizes his miracles as a test of his having been sent by 


Fact of Christ’s Messtanic Consctousness 145 


God, and demands in this absolute faith (John ix, 3; x, 25, 32, 
By MV yt 10s XV s24): 

The eye-witness John continually mentions the success with 
which this increasing Messianic revelation was attended.! 
“There was much murmuring among the multitude concern- 
ing him: for some said, He is a good man: and others said, 
No; but he seduceth the people. Yet no man spoke openly of 
him for fear of the Jews ’’—that is, of the Scribes and Phari- 
sees (John vii, 12 and 13). 

Nevertheless, many from among the people believed on 
him and said: ‘‘ When the Christ cometh, shall he do more 
miracles than these which this man doth? The Pharisees 
heard the people murmuring these things concerning him, 
and the rulers and Pharisees sent ministers to apprehend 
him’’ (John vil, 31, 32). But as Jesus, in spite of this, con- 
tinued to make his impressive revelation, the faith of the 
people increased also. Some said: ‘“‘ This is the prophet 
indeed. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, 
Doth the Christ come out of Galilee? So there arose a 
dissension among the people because of him’’ (John vii, 
40-43). Yet the number of those who believed steadily in- 
creased (John viii, 30). In vain did the Pharisees determine 
to put out of the synagogue every one who should confess him 
to be the Christ (John ix, 22). They could no longer control 
this great wave of popular enthusiasm. ‘If we let him alone 
so, all will believe in him’’ (John xi, 48), said the supreme 
council. And, in fact, Jesus was already quite commonly 
spoken of among the people as “ Christ the Messiah’’ (Matt. 
XXVil, 17, 22), and with each day the army of his adherents 
grew greater (John x, 42; xi, 27 and 45). 

Already the week of his Passion was approaching ; and now 
that the multitude, for the most part, believed in his Messiah- 
ship, Jesus set to work, as he had long tried to do with his 
disciples, to correct publicly the popular notion of the Messiah, 
prevalent even among the masses who believed on him. The 
Son of Man, he says, is not the longed-for Messianic king, 
and his kingdom and his glory are not of this world. He is 
not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give 
his life a redemption for many (Mark x, 38, 45). The way 
to his infinite Messianic dominion and glory leads through 
suffering, death and the grave (Matt. xxvi, 10-12; Luke 
xix, 11, etc.). “Foras the lightning that lighteneth from under 
heaven, shineth unto the parts that are under heaven, so 


1 It is simply impossible to controvert the genuineness of this Johan- 
nine delineation. Only an eye-witness could observe so sharply and 
feel so keenly. P. M. Strayer in The Self-Revelation of Christ, with 
special reference to the Fourth Gospel, in the Bzblical World, xxxil, 
327-334, rightly points out that the development of the Messianic con- 
sciousness and its acceptance by the people is pourtrayed most clearly 
and precisely in the Fourth Gospel and is corroborated by the synoptists. 

I. IO 


146 Christ and the Critics 


shall the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer 
many things and be rejected by this generation’ (Luke xvii, 
24, 25). 

aap words, however, were, to the people, absolutely in- 
comprehensible (John xii, 37). They still unanimously adhered 
to the idea that he was indeed the Messiah, but that, being so, 
he was the Deus ex machina, who would soon ascend the 
throne of David. 

Such was the popular sentiment, under the influence of 
which the great Messianic demonstration’ was prepared and 
realized at the beginning of the holy week. On the eve of 
that week an exhibition of miraculous power, following closely 
that of the calling of Lazarus to life, contributed the last 
impulse to this movement. Two blind men of Jericho hastened 
towards the Saviour, who was passing by with the multitude, 
with the cry : “ Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on us!’’ 
And they received their sight (Matt. xx, 30 and parallels). 

When Jesus thereupon was about to enter Jerusalem, the 
people met him with shouts of ‘‘ Hosanna to the Son of 
David !’’ (Matt. xxi, 9) “ Blessed be the King that cometh !”’ 
(Luke xix, 38) “‘ Blessed is the King of Israel !’’ (John xu, 13) 
‘“‘ Blessed is the kingdom of our father David, that cometh !”’ 
(Mark xi, 10) “ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
Lord !’’ to establish it (Matt. xxi, 9). These were merely 
acclamations to the national and political Messiah which they 
discerned in Jesus, and this made the Pharisees furious: 
“Behold, the world is gone after him !’’ (John xii, 19). And 
they resolved to destroy him at once. 

Some days later Jesus stands before the highest tribunal of 
the land. He is accused of being a popular agitator who lays 
claim to the throne. That meant to the Romans a revolu- 
tionary, to the Jews a false Messiah. But both the Roman 
charge of his claiming to be a king of the Jews, and the 
Jewish charge of his claiming to be a Messianic king, are 
refuted by Jesus with the single utterance: ‘“‘ My kingdom is 
not of this world’’ (John xviii, 36). Then he develops the 
true, spiritually supernatural idea of the Messiah, and sets 
the official seal upon his whole revelation of himself as the 
Messiah, when he, under a sacred oath, affirms that he is ‘‘ the 
Christ, the Son of God,’’ “the Son of the Blessed,’’ he who, 
in his own character as the ‘‘ Son of Man,”’’ shall sit at the 
right hand of almighty God, and shall one day come again in 
the clouds of heaven (Matt. xxvi, 63; Mark xiv, 61; Luke 
xxii, 69). 

But the more decidedly he rejected for himself the notion 
of the Messiah, held by the Pharisees and the people, and the 
more positively he applied to himself the true conception of 


1 That the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem was a Messianic scene is con- 
ceded also by Loisy, Les Hvangiles synoptiques, i, 110. 


Fact of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 147 


the Christ, the more clearly he appeared to all classes of 
Jewish society as a false Messiah. 

A few hours later there were to be read upon his cross the 
words, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’’ (John 
xix, 19). The Romans read this as meaning “ This Jesus of 
Nazareth claimed to be a Jewish pretender to the throne.”’ 
The Jews understood it as signifying “ This Jesus of Nazareth 
claimed to be the Messianic King promised to the Jews.’’ 
Jesus, however, had contended his whole life long against 
this conception of his person and the Messianic office. The 
steadily progressive revelation of himself as the Messiah had 
had precisely for its object the avoidance of this terrible mis- 
understanding. At the commencement, in the centre and at 
the conclusion of his career he uniformly professed to be the 
Messiah. Yet in an entirely different sense from that held by 
his expectant Jewish contemporaries. 


CHAPTER II 


CONTENT OF THE MESSIANIC CON- 
SCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST 


HAT the views concerning the Messiah, held by 

Jesus, did not agree with the official Messianic 

ideas of Jewish society is clear from the fore- 

going explanations. Christ’s positive notion of 

the Messiah also is thereby partially revealed. Not 
completely, however. The question remains: Did Jesus 
entirely reject the common idea of the Messiah, characteristic 
of rabbinical Judaism, or did he merely seek to correct it? 
And, in the latter case, did he correct the popular notion of 
the Messiah in regard to a special Messianic movement of 
that time, or did he appeal from the Judaism of his contem- 
poraries back to the canonical writings of the Old Testament, 
fulfilling and transfiguring the Messianic prophecies of the 
Prophets? Or did he give to the respective names and titles 
of Messiah and Son of Man, which he assumed, a wholly new 
and individual sense and substance? 

The answer to this question is extremely important. 
According to this, Jesus will appear to the world as a 
universal Saviour in the sense of Christianity, or, on the 
contrary, as an eccentric among the Jewish Rabbis, an apoca- 
lyptical enthusiast, or even as a modern superman. Hence 
the feverish interest which the latest criticism of this question 
excites. These critics must concede to orthodox Christianity 
the fact of Christ’s testimony to himself as the Messiah; and 
so they try at least to diminish the substance of this testimony, 
so that nothing positively Christian is left in it, and Jesus 
appears only as an enthusiast or a Messiah of civilization. 


I.—TuHr CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH BEFORE 
Jesus CuHRIST. 


In order to appreciate the point at issue, and at the same 
time better to understand the attitude of Judaism to Jesus, 
we must first sketch briefly the Israelitish and Jewish notion 
of the Messiah in its fundamental lines up to the time of 
Christ’s appearance. I say “sketch briefly,’’ for it is only a 
matter of gaining a general survey of the subject, from which 
the Messianic views of the Saviour will then detach them- 
selves more clearly. We must refer whoever wishes to inform 

148 


Content of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 149 


himself more thoroughly about ante-christian Messiahship, 
whether of the Old Testament or of later Judaism, to the 
special literature on that subject. 


1. The Conception of the Messiah in Old Testament 
Prophecies 


We present the prophetical conception of the Messiah 
found in the Old Testament much more briefly than the 
rabbinical and apocalyptical ideas of him, and for an obvious 
reason. The modern evolutionary-historical criticism, with 
which we are concerned, measures Christ’s Messianic con- 
ception, first of all, not by the Old Testament ideas of the 
Messiah, but by the rabbinical and apocalyptic notions of 
him, which were nearer in time to the Saviour, and from 
which Christ’s Messianic claim is said to be taken. Also 
the following quotations of Old Testament passages are here 
valued only as historical expressions of the older prophetic 
ideas and expectations of the Messiah. The question whether 
they are, in the strict sense of the word, prophecies, and were 
fulfilled in Christ, does not belong to our present task. But 
that these passages refer to the Messianic hope and person 
cannot be seriously controverted.? 

The essence of the old idea of the Messiah is expressed in 
the words Son of David, Son of Man, Servant of God, God 
with us and the kingdom of God. 

Son of David. According to revelation, God promised, 
immediately after the Fall, to the misguided mother of the 
race a descendant who should vanquish the seducer and 
establish in opposition to his kingdom a kingdom of goodness. 
“T will put enmities between thee [the serpent] and the 
woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, 
and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel’’ (Gen. iii, 15).? After 
the flood the promise goes over to the Semites through Noe 
(Gen. ix, 25-27), and later particularly to Abraham, the first 


1 The following works give more detailed information: Bade, CA&rist- 
ologie des A. T. (1850-1852) ; Hengstenberg, Christologie des A.T. (1854- 
1857); Reinke, Die messtanischen Weissagungen bet den grossen und 
kleinen Propheten des A. T., five vols. (1859-1862) ; Bohl, Christologie des 
A. 7, (1882); Becker, Die Weitssagungen als Kriterien der Offenbarung 
(1890) ; Orelli, Dze alttestamentl. Weissagungen von der Vollendung des 
Gottesretches (1882); Meignan, Les Prophétes dad’ Israel et le Messte 
(1894); Hiithn, Dre messtanischen Wetssagungen (1899); Riehm, Die 
messianischen Wetssagungen des tsraelitisch-judischen Volkes bis zu 
den Targumim (1899); Caillard, /ésus-Christ et les prophéties mes- 
Staniques (1905); Moller, Die messtanischen Erwartung der vorextlischen 
Propheten (1906); A. Schulte, Die messtantschen Wetssagungen des A. 
T. (1908); Leimbach, Messianische Wetssagungen des A. T. (1909); 
Ernst Sellin, Die tsraelitisch-juidische Heilandserwartung (1909); A. 
Lémann, Atstoire compléte de Vidée messtanique chez le peuple d’[srael 
(1909); Richter, Die messtanische Wetssagung in thre Erfillung (1905). 

2 See also Zapletal, Alttestamentliches, 16-25, (1903). 


150 Christ and the Critics 


ancestor of the Israelitish people. ‘I will bless thee,’’ God 
says to Abraham, ‘and thou shalt be blessed. I will bless 
them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and in 
thee shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed’’ (Gen. 
Xll, 2, 3). ‘‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be 
blessed’’ (Gen. xxii, 18). Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, be- 
queathed the promise of the blessing and the Saviour of the 
nations to the tribe of Juda: ‘‘ The sceptre shall not be 
taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he 
come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of 
nations ’’ (Gen. xlix, 10).? 

This supremacy of Juda is handed down to David, to 
whom again the promise is made: “I will raise up thy seed 
after thee . ....and will establish his kingdom. ... He 
shall build a house to my name, and I will establish the 
throne of his kingdom for ever’’ (2 Kings vii, 11-16). Long 
after David and his immediate successors had departed this 
life, and their power had fallen, it is still always announced 
that David, the Son of David, the offspring of the house of 
David, at some future time shall reign for ever over Israel: 
‘And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed 
them, even my servant David; he shall feed them and he shall 
be their shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, and my 
servant David the prince in the midst of them. I the Lord 
have spoken it’’ (Ezek. xxxiv, 23, 24).? 

But not only Israel, but also the Gentile nations are to be 
the heirs of this Son of David, whom God will place as an 
everlasting king upon Sion, the holy hill (Ps. it, xliv, cix). 
For he will replace the old covenant, concluded only with 
Israel, by a new covenant, and the Jewish theocracy by a 
new Messianic kingdom (Jer. xxxi, 31-34): ‘‘ And in that day 
the root of Jesse [David], who standeth for an ensign of 
people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre 
shall be glorious’’ (Isa. xi, 10). ‘‘ And many people shall go 
and say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the 
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us 
of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For the Law shall 
come forth from Sion and the word of the Lord from Jeru- 
salem ’’ (Isa. 11, 3; Mic. iv, 1-3). “‘ The earth is filled with 
the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea ”’ 
(Isa. xi, 9). In justice, peace, compassion and blessings shall 
David’s Son reign “ from sea to sea and from the river unto 
the ends of the earth . . . and all kings of the earth shall 


1 See Lagrange, La prophétie de Jacob, Revue biblique, pp. 525 fe. 
(1898) ; Seydl, Donec ventat qui mittendus est, Katholik, xxi, pp. 159 ff. 
(1900); Zapletal, Alttestamentliches, 26-54 (1903) ; Posmanski, Shiloh ein 
Beitrag zur Geschichte der Messiaslehre, part I (1904). 

2, Séevalso Ezéch. XxXvil,° 21-28% Jer. xxii, 5, 6; xXx, S.0gs x ewreee 
15-26; Osee iii, 5; Amos 1x, 11. 


Content of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consctousness 151 


adore him, all nations shall serve him . . . and in him shall 
all the tribes of the earth be blessed ’’ (Ps. Ixxi).? 

If in the “Son of David’’ there is, conspicuous almost 
nothing but the brilliant and beneficent glory of the Messiah 
who is to govern as the head of the universal kingdom, yet, 
on the other hand, he is depicted as the Servant of God, who 
is to suffer and die vicariously for the sins of men, and thus is 
to acquire the Messianic supremacy and glory. This side of 
the Messianic expectation is especially emphasized in the 
Psalms descriptive of the Man of Sorrows (Ps. xxi and Ixviii) 
and in the songs of Isaias concerning the Servant of God.? 

The Servant of God, chosen and anointed by Jehovah, and 
equipped with all the gifts of the Spirit of God (Isa. xi, 2, 3), 
is to be a teacher, a prophet, a worker of miracles, and a 
saviour in the full sense of the words. As such he is called, 
not only for the salvation of Israel, but “for a light and 
redeemer of the Gentiles unto the ends of the earth’’ (Isa. 
xlii, 1-7; xlix, 6). Nevertheless, he will be despised by men, 
abhorred by the people, and proscribed by kings (Isa. xlix, 
1-9). ‘‘ Despised and rejected of mea, a man of sorrows’’ 
(liti, 3), he gives his body to the strikers and his cheeks to 
them that plucked them, and turns not away his face from 
them that rebuked him and spit upon him (Isa. 1, 6). “He 
was offered . . . and opened not his mouth; he shall be led as 
a sheep to the slaughter ’’ (Isa. lili, 7). Under nameless suffer- 
ings, deserted by heaven and rejected by earth (Ps. xxi, Ixviii), 
with pierced hands and feet (Ps. xxi, 17; Zach. xii, 10), he 
dies in the company of malefactors, he who had done no 
iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth (Isa. lit, 8, 9). 

Suffering, distress and death come upon him only on our 
account. ‘‘He hath borne our infirmities and carried our 
sorrows. . . . He was wounded for our iniquities, he was 
bruised for our sins, the chastisement of our peace was upon 
him, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep 
have gone astray; everyone hath turned aside into his own 
way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”’ 
(Isa. lili, 4-6). He atones to God for the sins of the world 
(Isa. lili, 8, 11). Thus does he fulfil the redemptive plan of 


1M. Giidemann, /Jidische Apologettk, pp. 51, 211 (1906), rightly says 
that in the historic plan of the Jewish religion there was nothing which 
could have promoted the subsequent national chauvinism; the Old 
Testament notion of God, the notion of a united humanity, and the 
duty of universal charity exclude in advance a national, chauvinistic 
character of the Messianic vision of the future. See Meinertz, Jesus 
und die Heidenmission, pp. 17-35 (1908). 

Pa tanwemiitviretO 4) xXlix,t-O 3 144-10 5s1i1) 2 3 lbil, 12); ly} 4 ny Lhe proot 
that these songs refer to the person of the Messiah and not to the Jewish 
nation does not belong here. See the copious literature or this subject 
and on the Messianic prophecies, and in particular see Feidmann, Der 
Knecht Gottes in Isaias (Freiburg, 1907); Conrad v. Orelli, Der Knecht 
Jahves im Jesajabuche (Lichterfelde, Berlin, 1908). 


152 Christ and the Critics 


the Lord, “and shall justify many’’ (Isa. liii, 11). Through 
him “all the ends of the earth shall remember and shall be 
converted to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Gentiles 
shall adore in his sight ’’ (Ps. xxi, 28). The murdered Servant 
of God shall, however, rise to a new life, and at the right 
hand of God shall be satisfied with fulness of joy and pleasures 
for evermore (Ps. xv, 10 and 11). 

From this proximity to God he will one day return for the 
Last Judgement, as the Son of Man, in the clouds of heaven, in 
order to enter into his everlasting dominion over the Messianic 
kingdom of God, which he had established and inherited 
through his sufferings, death and resurrection. That is the 
meaning of Daniel’s prophecy of the Son of Man: “I beheld 
in the vision of the night, and lo, one like the Son of Man 
came with the clouds of heaven, and he came even to the 
Ancient of Days, and they presented him before him. And he 
gave him power and glory and a kingdom; and all people, 
tribes and tongues shall serve him; his power is an everlasting 
power that shall not be taken away, and his kingdom that 
shall not be destroyed ” (Dan. vii, 9, 13, 14).* 

In view of this unheard-of dignity and these supernatural 
official functions of the Messiah, it is scarcely to be wondered 
at that he is announced as God in human form, as Emmanuel 
—God with us. 

In numberless passages, which it is neither necessary nor 
possible to quote here separately, the Old Testament pro- 
claims the fact that God himself will come in his own person 
to redeem his people. In the second psalm the Redeemer is 
designated more exactly as the Son of God. The Psalmist 
here attributes to the Messiah, constituted and anointed by 
God, the words: ‘‘ The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my 
Son, this day have I begotten thee’’ (Ps. ii, 7). But most 
clearly and emphatically does Isaias utter his prophecy con- 
cerning the divine redeemer: “‘ The Lord himself shall give 
you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 
and his name shall be called Emmanuel ”’ (Isa. vii, 14). That 
God is really meant in the metaphysical sense of the word by 
this Emmanuel, born miraculously of a virgin, is shown by the 
fact that he is designated immediately after as the highest 
Lord and possessor of the land of Israel, and is therefore 
identified with Jehovah (Isa. viii, 10). 

Then the prophet describes Emmanuel still more plainly as 
the divine Messiah: ‘ The people that walked in darkness 
have seen a great light; to them that dwelt in the region of 
the shadow of death, light is risen. . . . Fora child is born 
to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon 

1 In regard to the Messianic character of this passage, see the pre- 


viously mentioned literature about the Son of Man, and Lagrange, Les 
prophéties messianiques de Dantel, Revue bibligue, 494 ff. (1904). 


Content of Cbrist’s Messianic Consciousness 153 


his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
sellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the 
Prince of Peace. His empire shall be multiplied, and there 
shall be no end of peace; he shall sit upon the throne of 
David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it and strengthen 
it with judgement and with justice from henceforth and for 
ever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this’’ 
fisavix, 2, °6,:7):* 

The dominion of God over the world, or the kingdom of 
God in the world, was in general the sum total of all hopes 
for the future. The whole Old Testament is filled with the 
idea, which Jesus summarized in the words: “ Thy kingdom 
come.’’ By the Malkuth Jahwe, the kingdom of God, or 
the kingdom of Heaven—Heaven is only a metonymic 
designation of God?—the Holy Scripture means, according 
to the use of the Semitic language, exactly the concrete royal 
rights which God possesses over the world, and the exercise 
of these by God on his part, and the recognition of them by 
men on their part—that is, a kingdom which is governed from 
heaven and consents to be entirely subject to heaven.? 

Precisely the latter—the recognition by men of the inalien- 
able rights of God—is to be made a reality by the Messiah. 
The kingdom of God and the Messtah are, therefore, correla- 
tive ideas. All the traits of the Messiah unite here in one 
central point. As the suffering Servant of God he makes the 
founding of the kingdom possible; as the Son of David he 
comes to its head; and as the Son of Man he will some dav 
return to establish it in glory. Since, finally, the Messiah 
himself is “God with us,’’ his dominion will be one with that 
of God, and the kingdom of the Messiah becomes in the 
highest sense God’s kingdom. 

It is likewise clearly said in the prophetic announcements 
that in this kingdom the earthly and political aspirations of 
the people of the revelation also have their part. It does not 
at all appear that the prophecies on this subject are to be 
interpreted wholly and exclusively in a spiritual and religious 
sense. Rather is it to be supposed that Israel, provided it 
had not rejected the Messiah, would have inherited that tem- 
poral and national blessing which from time immemorial had 
been the reward for its fidelity to Jehovah, and which was 
promised no less for the Messianic period than as an accom- 


1 A more exact examination of the passages quoted from the Psalmist 
and Isaias cannot be given in this space. The proof that the Messiah 
was expected as God, in accordance with Old Testament prophecies, is 
abundantly furnished by Simon Weber, Die Gotthett Jesu in der 
alttestl. Offenbarungsgeschichte, in Jesus Christus, Vortrage zu Frei- 
burg im Br., 43-68 (1908). 

2 FE. Schiirer, Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes, 539 (Leipzig, 1808). 

3 Lagrange, Le régne de Dieu dans VPAncten Testament, Revue 


bibligue, 36-61 (1908). 


154 Christ and the Critics 


paniment of the spiritual and religious blessings of the Mes- 
stanic kingdom. These formed, however, unquestionably 
the principal thing, as is sufficiently evident from the state- 
ments thus far made. The Messianic kingdom will bring the 
perfect knowledge of God (Isa. ii, 2-4; xi, 9; Mic. iv, 1-3). 
The whole people will be blessed through God’s presence, and 
will find in him a refuge and help in every kind of distress and 
time of need (Isa. iv, 4; xxv, 4). Above all, however, the 
kingdom of God will be blessed by the full abundance of the 
forgiveness of sins, promised by the Messiah and purchased 
by his death. ‘In that day there shall be a fountain open to 
the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for the 
washing of the sinner and of the unclean woman’’ (Zach. 
xiii, 1). “In those days and at that time, saith the Lord, the 
iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; 
and the sin of Juda, and there shall none be found; for I will 
be merciful to them” (Jer. 1, 20). ‘‘I will forgive their 
iniquity and I will remember their sin no more’’ (Jer. xxxi, 
34). ‘‘ If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white 
as snow; and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white 
as wool’’ (Isa. i, 18). “I have blotted out thy iniquities as 
a cloud, and thy sins as a mist; return to me, for I have 
redeemed thee’’ (Isa. xliv, 22). 


2. The Phartsaical and Rabbinical Concept of the Messiah. 


The pharisaical and rabbinical theology developed after the 
return from exile, reached its climax about the time of Jesus, 
and was thereupon edited in the writings of the Synagogue, 
and especially in the literature of the Talmud. Although for 
this reason the publication of almost all the rabbinical litera- 
ture is subsequent to the time of Christ, it forms, nevertheless, 
‘a source of priceless information for the age of Jesus Christ; 
for the foundations of the current of tradition here established 
go back, not only to the lifetime of Christ, but far beyond it.’’} 

For this reason we present in the following pages the 
rabbinical views of the Messiah according to the oldest writ- 
ings of the Synagogue, if still older sources are not at hand.? 


1 E. Schiirer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes, p. 112 (1901); also 
W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zettalter, 
41 (Berlin, 1903). 

2 Thus the Zalmud will be quoted, according to custom, simply by 
treatise and folio page, and the Mishna by treatise, chapter and para- 
graph. From the Mzdrashim we have made use of Mechilta, ed. Weiss 
(Vienna, 1846); Szfra, ed. Malbim (Bukarest, 1860); Szfre, ed. Fried- 
mann (Vienna, 1864); Pestkta des R. Kohana, ed. Buber (Lyck, 1868). 
Together with this oldest Midrash from the third century, some other 
Midrashim have been used, the publication of which is later, but whose 
essential contents rest, as is acknowledged, on ancient synagogal tradi- 
tions—namely, Zanchuma, ed. Buber (Wilna, 1885), and several Rad- 
both, ed. Wiinsche (Aibliotheca rabbinica, Leipzig, 1880). 


Content of Christ's Messtanic Consciousness 155 


The picture thus gained will correspond essentially to the 
rabbinical ideas about the Messiah prevailing at the time of 
Christ. But no one at the present stage of investigation into 
Jewish theology can guarantee that every particular feature 
of them goes back to a period preceding the Christian era. 
At the first glance it seems strange that the rabbinical 
theology, and with it later Judaism, was not able to maintain 
itself at the height of that notion of the Messiah, entertained 
by the prophets, which we have just observed. It laid, on 
the whole, little stress any longer on the prophetic writings. 
In order to strengthen practical Jewish life as opposed to the 
influences of their pagan environment, the Law—that is, the 
613 Torah commandments (for such was the number that the 
Scribes found in the Pentateuch)—became more and more 
exaggerated at the expense of the real meaning of the pro- 
phetical Messianic revelation. The Rabbis not only caused 
the religious private life of the people to be entirely absorbed 
in devotion to the Law, in comparison with which prayers 
and sacrifices were much less important,? and not only made 
the reading of the Torah also the central point of public 
worship and of the whole religious consciousness of the com- 
munity,® but, according to them, the books of the Law contain 
the whole of religion, and the Torah is the revelation, in which 
God has included everything that he in any way can reveal* 
through all eternity. The Law® existed even before the world, 
and, accordingly, God already circumcised Adam before he 
breathed into him the breath of life,® while the prophetical 
and doctrinal books of Holy Scripture came only later and, as 
it were, by chance.? The books of the Law will also exist 


i See Klausner, Die Messianischen Vorstellungen des jidischen Volkes 
am ZLettalter der Tannaiten (Berlin, 1904); Robinson, Le Messianisme 
dans le Talmud et les Midraschim (Paris, 1907); B. Stakemeier, // 
Messtanismo degh Ebrei al tempo di Gesu, Rivista di scienze teologiche, 
35-45 (r910). On a broader scale write Schtirer, Bousset, and especially 

Hausrath, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (1868-1873); Alfred 
Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah, 1-110 (London, 
1890); H. Kellner, Jesus von Nazareth und seine Apostel im Rahmen 
der Zeitgeschichte (1908); J. Felten, Neutest. Zettgeschichte, oder Juden- 
tum und Heidentum zur Zett Christi u. der A postel, 133-189 (1910). 

2 Shabbath 10a and 30a; Jebamoth 103a; Wajjikra rabba 29. After 
the destruction of the Temple, study of the Torah replaces sacrifices for 
the atonement of all sins (Jebamoth 105a; Tanchuma Achare moth to), 
even for past murders (Szfre 1316). 

3 Sifre 13b and goa, jer Shabbath 12¢; Shemoth rabba c. 34. 
Other books were only introduced as appended to the reading of the 
Law (Zanchuma, Debarim Reéh 1; Rosh Hashshana iv, 6). 

4 Debarim rabbac. 8 on 5. Mos. xxx, 12; Taanith ga. 

5 Sebachim 116a; Shabbath 88b; Pirke Aboth vi, 10; Mechilta 64b; 
Bereshith rabbac. 1. 

6 Tanchuma Parasha Noach 5. It is often stated that Sem had his 
own school of instruction in the Law—e.g., Maccoth 23b. According to 
Bereshith rabba 63 Esau and Jacob had a dispute on the interpretation 
of Law in their mother’s womb. 

* Nedarim 226; Koheleth rabba on i, 13. 


156 Christ and tbe Critics 


eternally, while all the rest of the revelation will at some 
future time pass out of validity and use.* 

This frightful exaggeration [of the Law| destroyed the 
whole prophetical expectation of salvation. If the Mosaic 
Law—that is, the Law as interpreted by rabbinical and 
kabbalistic? exegesis, as the highest good and the only 
thing which remains eternally—is all, then Mosaism can no 
longer be a means to the end of Messianic redemption, and no 
more a transient institution; it is then itself redemption and 
perfection. 

And it was really looked upon as such by the rabbinical 
theology. According to this, Jehovah, by the revelation of ~ 
the Law on Sina, in order to make up for Adam’s fall, 
offered to the chosen people his loving union,* and Israel 
acceded to the proposal of its divine Bridegroom through its 
acceptance of the Law.*+ Thus Judaism was redeemed on 
Sina.° This act of redemption was to be the end of God’s 
dealings, and the nuptial relation which had been created thus 
between God and his people was to last for ever. Even 
though Israel had frustrated this plan of God by its worship 
of the golden calf,® yet so much at least is certain, that all 
the revelation of salvation cannot surpass what was given on 
Sinai. The aim of the historical development of the plan of 
salvation is, therefore, to get back again, through the fulfil- 
ment of the Law, what, through the episode of the golden 
calf, had been lost.? It is no more a matter of inward justifi- 
cation and of an atoning redemption from sin; sin, atonement, 
healing and justification, in the sense of Holy Scripture, are 
unknown to rabbinical theology. The great means of redemp- 
tion and the great act of redemption is excellence in matters 
of the Law, and that only. 

To complete this act of redemption is, however, not, of 
course, the work of the Messiah. If justice and justification ~ 
are conceived of only as legal notions and as the outward, 
legal justice of the nation and individual, then the nation or 


1 Shemoth rabba c. 33; jer. Megtlla i, 7. 

2 See F. Weber, /uidische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und ver- 
wandter Schriften, edited by F. Delitzsch and G. Schnedermann, pp. 
109-124 (Leipzig, 1897); Schtirer, of. ctt., pp. 419 ff.; Bousset, op. cit., 
128-138, 3 Bammidbar rabbac. 5 and 13. 

4 Shir rabba on 1, 2; Shabbath 88a; Pestkta 124b. God offered the 
Law even to the heathen, but they refused it (Peszkta 199b, 2004; 
Shemoth rabba c. 13). Therefore God cast.them away for ever (Wa7- 
jikra rabba c. 13; Bammidbar rabba c. 2), while confiding for ever in 
Israel (Debarim rabba c. 3; Shemoth rabba c. 51), so that Jehovah and 
Israel can never deny one another (Wajjtkra rabba c. 6) without com- 
mitting unfaithfulness (Shemoth rabba c. 33). 

5 Shir rabba on 1, 2; 4, 7; Bammidbar rabbac. 16; Shemoth rabba 
Ci 32: 

7 Pesikta 124b; Shabbath 88a; Shty rabba on 1, 3. 
? Bammidbar rabba c. 17: ‘‘ The Holy One, to whom be praise, hath 
established the Law and the commandments that Israel may obtain the 
life of the world to come.” 


Content of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 157 


individual must alone and on its own account make itself just 
through a mathematically strict balancing between debit and 
credit, between the demands of the Law and their fulfilment. 
These demands and fulfilments are noted down day by day, 
reckoned up, credited and balanced.! He is wholly just whose 
legal performances numerically equal the sum of the com- 
mandments ;? relatively just is he whose life-balance shows at 
least an absolute surplus of legal achievements. ° 

Only when the balance of all the individuals and of the 
whole nation corresponds to the budget of the Law—in other 
words, only when all Israel is justified and made holy—does the 
Messiah begin his work. Only then will the Redeemer come.* 

It is true his coming is immediately preceded by a period 
of absolute lawlessness. The appearance of that period is 
“like that of a dog.’’® Elias will, however, appear in order 
to create again respect for the Law, and thereby fully and 
absolutely to justify Israel and to make it holy for the 
Messiah.® Then, and only then, will the Messiah appear, as 
the well-earned reward for fidelity to the Law; not as a grace, 
much less as an act of redemption.’ 

His redeeming work—if one can still speak of it as such— 
consists in the fact that he, by word and example, encourages 
and perpetuates faithfulness to the Law. Asa perfectly com- 
petent scribe, he will instruct® all the people in the Torah, 
and even take upon himself its unbearable yoke ;? and he will 
be “loaded down, like a mill, with fulfilments of rabbinical 
commandments.”?° 

That is all. A great Rabbi—nothing more; that is the 
Messiah of the theology of the Synagogue. But a Messiah 
who makes his appearance as a preacher of morals, and who 
accuses this people, so faithful to the Law, and, above all, the 
flower and intelligence of the nation—the Scribes and Phari- 
sees—of guilt and sin, is at once condemned as a false 
Messiah. Should he once disclose the necessity of a religious 
regeneration for Israel, or should he wish to proclaim a 
religion surpassing the Mosaism of the Rabbis, he is a traitor 
to the Holy of Holies, a blasphemer. But also even the 
censure, and still more the violation of one single rabbinical 
iota, the healing of a sick man, or the plucking an ear of corn 


1 Wajjikra rabbac. 26; Tanchuma, Wajjelech 2; Aboda Sara 2a. 

2 Shabbath 322. 3 Kiddushin 40b; Pestkia 176 a. 

4 Sanhedrin 97b; Shabbath 118a; Shemoth rabba c. 25; Wajjtkra 
rabba c, 3. 

5 Sota ix, 15; Sanhedrin 97a; Shir rabba on 2, 13. 

6 Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer c. 43; cf. Matt. xvii, 10 ff.; Mark ix, 10 ff. ; 
Luke i, 16 ff. 

7 It needed all the intellectual power of St Paul to make even the Jews 
who had become Christians understand that they had not been justified 
4 the Law, but must become justified by Christ (see Rom. iii, 4, 7; 

hil. iii). 

4 Fee ticn Targum on Is. liii, 5, 10-12; Shir rabba on 2, 13. 

9 Jonathan Targum on Is. 1x, 3. 10 Sanhedrin 93 b. 


158 Christ and the Critics 


upon the Sabbath, association with a publican, or the omis- 
sion of an ablution, marked him as a disciple of Beelzebub. 
He only can be recognized as the true Messiah who, like the 
Scribes, and even more than they, observes the Law with all 
its additional stipulations, in all its subtleties, and with the 
whole rabbinical barrier drawn around it. 

The religious efficacy and redemptive activity of the Messiah 
are, accordingly, not specifically Messianic; they do not sur- 
pass those of Hillel or of an extraordinarily gifted scribe. 
The Messianic activity and work of the Redeemer lie essen- 
tially elsewhere. He has simply to toss the reward into the 
lap of self-redeemed Judaism by founding the Messianic 
kingdom; or, rather, by the re-establishment of the kingdom 
of God in the form in which it had already existed on Sinai, 
according to the fancy of the Rabbis; as a worldly—yes, 
exceedingly worldly—theocracy. 

In the opinion of the Rabbis, the kingdom of Heaven itself 
came down to earth with the Lord on Sinai.? From that time 
on, politics and religion were one and the same thing. To be 
subject to any other sovereign than Jehovah meant to deny 
the religious supremacy of God and even religion itself. Since 
God had taken up his abode in the midst of his people, he 
alone was that people’s King and supreme Lord, and his 
dominion assured not only Israel’s predominance over the 
Gentiles, who served him as his footstool, but it created para- 
disaical conditions of every kind. God’s nearness banished 
all the consequences of original sin and re-established the 
blessed primitive state of the Garden of Eden in this terres- 
trial kingdom of Heaven, until the earth should be merged 
into heaven itself, and time into eternity. Thus did Nomism 
imagine the first redemptive kingdom on Sinai? to have been, 
and thus it logically imagined would be also its rehabilitation 
by the Messiah. 

On the first day that the entire nation shall keep the Law* 
the Messiah will appear, drive back the enemies of Israel, 
compel the Gentiles to respect the Torah,° and establish the 
Messianic dominion. ® 


1 See Dollinger, Hetdentum und Judentum, 773 (Regensburg, 1857). 

2 Mechilta 73b; Pestkta 16b; Shemoth rabbac. 23. 

Se Weberj,op. cit., p.271 Tf: 

If all Israel would repent even for only one day, and would keep 
only one Sabbath perfectly holy, the Messiah would at once appear. 
Pesikta 163b; Shemoth rabba c. 25. 

5 Weber, p. 385 ff. In this procedure, however, the formal conversion 
to the Law and thereby the hope of Messianic salvation for the godless 
Gentiles are excluded, according to Aboda Sara 3b; Jebamoth 24b, etc. 
Jewish proselytising propaganda had its justification only before the 
coming of the Messianic era. Whoever is not already a Jew when the 
Messiah comes cannot any more become one, and is at once excluded 
from participation in the Messianic blessings (see Lagrange, Le Mes- 
stanisme chez les Jutfs, 284-287). 

6 Mechilta sob; Pestkta 51a; Debarim rabba c. 1 


re 


EContent of Christ’s Messtanic Consciousness 159 


This is regarded as the continuation of the kingdom of 
David and Solomon,' which, however, will be far surpassed 
by the Messianic kingdom in brilliancy, splendour, might and 
happiness. Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom, will, at 
the same time, be the metropolis of all the cities of the world.? 
Its ascendancy, grandeur and magnificence will be something 
until then unknown.*® In the midst of the city God will pile 
up Carmel, Thabor and Sina, one on top of the other, and will 
erect upon the summit the Temple,* visible to the whole 
world. From there the Messiah, in the name of Jehovah, will 
extend his sceptre. The vast Roman Empire,° which arose 
only on account of Israel’s sins, will lie in ruins at his feet.°® 
The non-Roman pagan nations will be obliged to pay tribute 
to him and to the pious Israelites, as vassal states.7 

To serve the Messiah and the Jews in Palestine will be the 
sole raison d’étre of the nations living outside Palestine. As 
a beneficent Messianic king, the Messiah offers himself only 
to the children of Abraham and only in the Promised Land.° 
Hence all the scattered remnants of Israel will return from the 
dispersion under Divine leadership and assemble in Palestine. °® 

There he will lavishly bestow the blessings of the Messtanic 
kingdom and era. All the sensuous delights of the Israelitish 
kingdom of the Torah ever dreamed of will be realized—the 
removal by the Messiah of every kind of sickness and distress, 
wonderful physical beauty and vitality for the children of Israel, 
and'° a fabulous productivity of soil and plants. Women 
will give birth to children daily.1+ Men will be twice as tall as 
Adam, who measured one hundred ells in height: even the 
dwarfs among them will reach to the pinnacles of the Temple. *” 
No bunch of grapes will produce less than thirty casks of 
wine.'* Barley will attain the height of the palm-tree and 
scatter meal about, already ground on demand, without any 
need of harvesting first.1* If roasted pigeons are added, then 
the measure of the Messianic blessings will be full—a veritable 
fairy life in fairyland. 

Shall it therefore be said that the rabbinical attitude towards 
the Messiahship had only earthly and political characteristics 
and none that were also deeply religious? God forbid! That 


Pesachim 544. 2 Shir rabba on ft, 5. 
Baba bathra 75ab; Sifre 65a; Pestkta 143 ab. 
Pestkia 144b. 

5 The world-power to be destroyed by the Messiah is, according to 
the entire rabbinical theology, the Roman Empire (see Weber, 365; 
Schtirer, ii, 532; Bousset, 204). 6 Sifre 86a. 

* Tanchuma 19; Shemoth rabba c. 35. 8 Bousset, 216. 

9 Schiirer, ii, 537. Unfortunately, Schiirer in his magnificent work 
has not clearly enough distinguished between the rabbinical and the 
eschatological and apocalyptic conceptions. 

10 Bereshith rabba c. 12 and 26; Shabbath 30b; Pesachim 68a. 

1 Shabbath 30b. 12 Baba bathra 754. 

13 Kethuboth 111b. Ata... rit db, 


he Co kee 


160 Christ and the Critics 


would be a complete misapprehension. Rabbinical Judaism 
has never failed to recognize the importance of its historical 
plan of salvation. It was, as we have said, convinced that 
the Messiah would lead the Jews to the exact observation of 
the religious Law of God in the Torah, and also would bring 
those who were not Israelites to recognize it. Precisely in 
that did the Synagogue see the spiritual worth and essential 
character of the Messianic age and the Messianic kingdom. 
The supremacy of the Torah, which, according to rabbinical 
interpretation, was one with the supremacy of God, was to 
make itself felt everywhere over the whole earth. So far 
as this the pharisaical idea of the Messiah was thoroughly 
religious, and even religious in a universal sense. 

And not only in theory, but also in the practical conduct of 
life, did the Jews show'a great, in fact, an unheard-of zeal for 
the hoped-for “kingdom of God.’’* One must allow that* 
under the leadership of the Pharisees they were more en- 
thusiastic for the kingdom of God than ever, and sought to 
usher it in, not merely through a punctual observation of the 
Law, but through an acceptance of the rabbinical “ yoke.’’? 
Precisely in order to increase the practical observance of the 
Law and yoke, and so to bring about the Malkuth Jahwe more 
speedily, they also developed that intense missionary activity 
of theirs, and compassed sea and land to make one proselyte 
(Matt. xxiii, 15). 

The immense mistake lay in the fact that this Messtanic 
conception, whether practical or theoretical, was applied to a 
kingdom of God which in a secular and political sense had 
acquired a changed value. The Judaists understood by this, 
in spite of all pious phrases and pharisaical hypocrisy, essen- 
tially a sudden change of things in the sense of the material- 
ized, thoroughly worldly and particularly Jewish-Davidic 
supremacy. They endured the Law and “ yoke’’ principally 
because these were the means to this political and national 
purpose. The Messiah was longed for by all classes because 
he was to hasten and assure the advent of their national 
dominion through the enforcement of the Law. And even 
Jehovah, who was to assume the government of Israel, must 
for this purpose place himself exclusively at the service of the 
Jewish national aspirations. He must become (excuse the 
expression, since it is absolutely correct) a thorough-going 


1 Malkuth Jahwe. 

2 Not only in the Gospels (Matt. xxili, 4), but also in the 7almud the 
rabbinical fulfilling of the Law is always described as a ‘“‘ yoke’”’ and 
‘‘a heavy burden ” (see Gal v, 1). Even one solitary commandment is 
exceedingly difficult to put into practice (Mechilta 110a); but positive 
commandments are concerned with everything, yes, everything (Szfra 
on iii; Mos. 8, 25). Every object must be handled according to definite 
rules; every kind of work—for example, ploughing or planting—must 
be done in accordance with fixed, literal, theological instructions, other- 
wise a grave sin is committed (Bammidbar rabba c. 17). 





Content of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 161 


Jew of the Law, must take upon himself in every way both 
Law and yoke, and put himself, with his heavenly royal court, 
entirely under the orders of the Jewish Sanhedrim.' Every- 
thing else that the Judaism of the Rabbis and Pharisees 
dreamed of, beyond their theocratical national power and its 
blessedness, was purely secondary, merely an accompanying 
phenomenon. The Talmud often expressly assures us: 
“There is no other difference between the present world and 
the era of the Messiah than the [present | servitude enforced 
upon us by the kingdoms [of the Gentiles |.’’? 

Let it not be said that the Jewish conception of the Messiah 
first reached its sharply nationalistic and material climax in 
the period after Christ. It is, rather, proved from the most 
reliable sources that already in the time of Christ the Jewish 
kingdom of God and expectations concerning the Messiah 
had sunk to a political and material level. Even the Psalms 
of Solomon, which were composed half a century before 
Christ,* and express most ideally the Messianic conception of 
the Pharisees, do not rise above the level just described. 
According to their glowing pourtrayal, the Messiah will be a 
just king, taught by God, and filled with the Holy Spirit, who 
will rule a thoroughly holy and just people; that is, one that 
is law-abiding and well versed in the practice of the Torah.* 
He will govern Israel “‘ in the fear of God and in the wisdom, 
rectitude and power of the Spirit’’; he will lead it ‘in the 
path of righteousness, since he impresses upon ail the fear of 
God.’’ He will not extend his dominion only to the Gentiles. 
“He will direct nations and peoples with wisdom and equity. 
He will gather the nations together under his yoke, that they 
may serve him, and he will thus make Jehovah glorious over 
the whole earth.’’’ The main thing, the essentially Messianic 
element in him is, however, his Davidic kingdom, the secular 
power with which he is to rule [srael, shatter its enemies and 
purify Jerusalem from the Gentiles.° Not a single non- 
Israelite is to dwell in the Messianic kingdom. Foreigners 
will be allowed only to bring gifts to Palestine for the children 
of Israel, and to stare enviously at their grandeur.’ The 
Messiah is wholly a political ruler, and the Messianic king- 
dom a thoroughly secularized and nationalized “ kingdom of 
heaven.’’® 

We need only to open the Gospel to become convinced that 


this conception in the Psalms of Solomon of the kingdom 


and activity of the Messiah was by no means an isolated 
instance. Wherever the Scribes and Pharisees appear in the 


1 For the proof of this, see my Die Krisis des religtésen Judentums 


zur Zeit Christi, 10-12. 2 Shabbath 63a; Pesachim 68 a, 
8 Oskar von Gebhardt, Die Psalmen Salomonts (1895). 
4 Ps. Salom. xviii, 28-46. 5 ¢d., xvii and xviii. 
6 Ps. Salom. Xvii, 23-27. 
+ Ps. Salom. xvii, 30-34. 8 ¢d., Xi, XV11, XV111. 


I. If 


162 Christ and the Critics 


Gospels, and wherever Jesus comes at all into contact with 
official Judaism in province or capital, we recognize the same 
materialized notion of the Messiah. We have had occasion to 
prove that sufficiently in the foregoing chapter. 

Nor were these views limited only to the homeland, Pales- 
tine. The Hellenistic Jews in foreign countries thought the 
same. Flavius Josephus knows only a Messianic king, 
whom he, the renegade to Rome, hails in the Emperor Ves- 
pasian.* According to Philo of Alexandria (who died about 
A.D. 60), the Messiah has merely a military part to play, in- 
cluding a fight against the enemies of the Law and of the 
people of the Law, the victory and everlasting dominion of 
this people, and its attendant luxury, wealth, honour and 
corporate unity.? 

The rabbinical-Jewish Messiah is also, on that very account, 
merely a man, both in origin and by nature.* Only the name 
of the Messiah—that is, the plan of his mission—1is ancient. 
It is true, together with this ideal, the Palestine theology 
admits also a real pre-existence of the soul of the Messiah. 
This was, however, only in consequence of the rabbinical anthro- 
pology, which believes all human souls to have been created 
before the world, and kept in a sort of store-house in the 
seventh heaven until the moment of their union with the body.* 

The Messiah is therefore a pre-existent and transcendental 
being in no other sense than all other men are. Also, the 
doctrine of the purely human origin and nature of the Messiah | 
was not at all a more or less disseminated dogma, but was 
the common view of the rabbinical-jewish theology. The 
Jew Trypho assures St Justin very positively : ‘““ We all expect 
the Messiah as a man born from human parents, and as one 
who will receive from Elias, as soon as the latter shall appear, 
the kingly consecration.’’° 

That this opinion did not first appear at a time subsequent 
to Christ is clearly evident from the Gospel, especially from 
the dispute of Jesus with the Jews, whom he wishes to con- 
vince out of Ps. cix that the Messiah is not merely an earthly 
descendant of David (Matt. xxii, 42 and parallels). Only 
through his zeal for the Law is he, like Abraham, Moses, 
Job and Ezechias,® superior to the average man, and he 
makes himself, precisely through this justification by the Law, 
worthy of accomplishing the work of the Messiah.7 

If now we compare these rabbinical views, which were 
current among the contemporaries of Jesus, with those of the 


1 Bellum Judaicum vi, 5, 4 

2 Philo, De premiis, xiv-xx; De execrationibus, viii, ix, xix. Con- 
sult E. Brehier, Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d’Alex- 
andrie (Paris, 1908); Lagrange, Le Messiantsme chez les Juifs, 28-37. 

3 Targ. Jonathan on Isa. xi, 13; Shir rabba 4, 8. 

4 See Weber, § 46, 78. 5 Dialog. cum Tryphone c. 49. 

6 Bammidbar rabba c. 143 Bereshith rabba c. 8s. 

7 Bereshith rabba, 85. 





Content of Christ’s Messtanic Consciousness 163 


Old Testament, the result is a very wide difference. The 
narrow, national, materialistic power of the pharisaical 
Messianic kingdom, pertaining to this world only, stands in 
striking contrast to the world-embracing spiritual kingdom of 
God. It is true it based itself upon the religious fundamental 
Law of the Torah and had a theocratic character, but in prin- 
ciple it was conceived as thoroughly earthly and political. 

The figure of the suffering and dying Servant of God was 
naturally no longer suited to this frame. It was the greatest 
conceivable annoyance to the Jews. Only rarely did a Rabbi 
dare to apply the descriptions of Isaias and the book of 
Wisdom (ii, 12-20) of the sufferings of the “just’’ to the 
Messiah. Rabbinical Judaism was deaf and blind to these 
Messianic prophecies. Dalman’ and Lagrange? have clearly 
demonstrated this state of the case, which apologists even 
now often overlook. But the supernatural and supernational 
Son of Man of Daniel became also detached from the phari- 
saical notion of the Messiah, not to speak of Emmanuel. 
Only the Son of David remained, the purely earthly and 
Jewishly interpreted offspring of the great king, who was to 
lead the national power of the Torah to victory. 


3. The Apocalyptic and Eschatological Notion of the 
Messiah. 


Running parallel with the official Messianic notion of 
rabbinical theology, and of the great mass of the Jewish 
people was the eschatological and apocalyptic conception. 
This bore more the character of a conventicle religion, scarcely 
touched the masses, and represented a sect, in so far as it 
based its conclusions on apocryphal books, in contrast to the 
authoritative theology of the Synagogue, instead of evolving 
its doctrines, according to the rabbinical rule, only out of the 
canonical writings of the Old Testament. 

The prevalence of apocalyptic ideas was in full swing 
from 160 B.c. to A.D. 120.° Its more important literary pro- 
ductions, in so far as they concern our purpose, are the 
following : The Book of Henock,* the original manuscript of 


1 Der leidende und sterbende Messias der Synagoge im ersten nach- 
christlichen Jahrtausend (Berlin, 1888). 

2 Le Messianisme chez les Juifs, 236-251, 259. 

3 For more exact information concerning the origin and age of the 
separate apocalyptic writings, see Schiirer, Geschichte des jtidischen 
Volkes, iii, 190-293 (1898); E. Kautzsch, Die Apokryphen des A. T., 1 
(Tubingen, 1900); P. Holz, J/udische Eschatologie (Tubingen, 1903). 

4 See Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch (Oxford, 
1906); a Greek-German edition by Radermacher and Flemming, Das 
Buch Henoch in Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der dret 
ersten Jahrhunderte (1901); German translation by Beer, ‘* Das Buch 
Henoch,” in E. Kautzsch’s Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des 
A. 7. ii, 117-210; L. Gry, Quand furent composées les paraboles 
@’Hénoch, 103-141 (Muséon, 1909), and Le Messianisme des paraboles 
@’Hénoch et la théologie juive contemporaine, 143-154 (Muséon, 19009). 


164 Christ and the Critics 


which dates from the time of the Machabees, and whose most 
important parts, the metaphorical discourses,* originated in 
the last decades before Christ; the Book of Jubilees, or the 
Little Genesis, from the time of John Hyrcanus;? the 
Assumption of Moses, written about six years after Christ ;* 
the ante-christian Jewish portions of the Sybilline Oracles ;* 
and, finally, two manuscripts concluded only after the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem—viz., the Apocalypse of Esdras,° also 
called the “ Fourth Book of Esdras,’’ and the Apocalypse of 
Baruch.® 

The Messianic ideas in the apocalyptic writings are cer- 
tainly often amalgamated with the rabbinical. Pharisaical 
and apocalyptic views at the outset whirl about in a confused 
mass. The older apocalyptic writers still held fast, however, 
wholly or in part, to the earthly, temporal Messianic king of 
the Synagogue; but when the prospects of the realization of 
the Messianic-Davidic kingdom, after the downfall of the 
Machabees and the beginning of the time of Herod, vanished 
more and more, many zealots doubted whether they should 
live to see it in this thoroughly corrupted world. They clung 
now narrowly and exclusively to the prophecy of Daniel about 
the Son of Man, who was to appear in transcendent might 
only at the end of the world, in order to place himself at the 
head of a supermundane kingdom of God. 

In contrast to the hope of the future, previously held, which 
had kept wholly within the limits of the present world, all the 
Messianic ideas were now transported into the supermundane 
and the hereafter. Wauth the coming of the Messianic age a 
new phase of the world will begin in the cosmological sense. 
This phase of the final period is, in all respects, in violent 
contrast to the present one. This temporal phase is under the 
dominion of the powers hostile to God—viz., Satan and his 
visible and invisible confederates. The future phase, in the 
world hereafter, will be under the dominion of God and his 
Messiah only. Both epochs are absolutely separated. The 
earthly condition of the world must first be destroyed before 
the supermundane Messianic phase can be ushered in. 

Hence the Messianic salvation will come entirely from above, 
to the exclusion of all earthly relations whatsoever. The earth, 
on which it appears, will first be renewed from above, or else 


sik 8s ok fou A ¥ 

2 Cae The Book of Jubtlees, or the Little Genests (London, 1902). 

3 Charles, The Assumption of Moses (London, 1897). 

4 I use the edition of Joh. Geffken, Die Oracula Sybillina, in den 
griechischen christlichen Schriftstellern der ersten dret Jahrhunderte 
(Leipzig, 1902). 

5 The fourth Book of Ezra (Bensley, 1895); Leon Vaganay, Le prob- 
leme eschatologique Zans le quatriéme livre d’Esdras (Paris, 1906). 

6 Fritzsche, Libri apocrypht Veterts Testament: (Lipsiw, 1871), 
German translation by Victor Ryssel; Die Apokalypsen des Baruch, ii, 
402-457). 


Content of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consciousness 165 


be let down directly from heaven. The blessings of the Mes- 
sianic age, even those which are wholly sensuous, will be 
stored up in heaven until the coming of the Messiah. Above 
all, however, the Messiah himself is, in his origin, nature, life 
and work, entirely transcendental, pertaining exclusively to 
the other world. Pre-existing in heaven, he will descend 
thence at the conclusion of this earthly period, merely to 
decide the fate of men, as Judge, and to set himself up as the 
Messianic regent of the new world. In a word, while the 
popularly conceived Jewish Messiah and his kingdom are 
thoroughly earthly, and develop their activity in this world 
and period, the apocalyptic Messiah belongs entirely to the 
other world, produces his stage-effect (for one cannot call it 
by any other name) by ushering in a new phase of world 
history, and founds his dominion as a post-mundum kingdom 
of heaven. 

Many apocalyptic writers think that this kingdom will 
last for ever, while others suppose that it will be relieved 
after a longer or shorter period by the resurrection of the 
dead, the Last Judgement and a condition of eternal duration 
in heaven or hell. Hence the modern writers on the subject 
are wont to call the apocalyptic Messianic ideas eschato- 
logical because in them everything is concentrated on the last 
things, on the end of this period of the world and on the 
succeeding transcendental Messianic world. 

The eschatological element is also the only difference 
between the rabbinical and the apocalyptic Messianic stand- 
points. The stage manager, the stage itself and the mise en 
scéne are different in both; but fundamentally the same piece 
is played, whether in one place or another—namely, that of 
putting Israel, in a strongly materialistic sense, into a position 
of national world supremacy. One would not believe it pos- 
sible, yet it is really so. The Messiah will first subdue all the 
enemies of God’s people and drive the kings from their 
thrones and kingdoms? by the mere breath of his mouth and 
the sharpness of his purely forensic judgement. Then he 
will award to the pious Jews dominion “over the whole 
earth, which is under heaven, and they shall reign over all 
nations . . . and shall possess the whole earth.’’* All the 


1 See the representations of the eschatological apocalyptists in W. 
Bousset’s Jesu Predigt tm Gegensatz zum Judentum (1892), and Dre 
Religion des Judentums im neutestl. Zettalter, 230-273 (1903); Paul 
Volz, Judische Eschatologie von Dantel bis Aktba (1903); W. Bal- 
densperger, Die messtanisch-apocalyptischen Hoffnungen des Juden- 
tums (1903); Hugo Gressmann, Der Ursprung der tsraelitisch-judischen 
Eschatologie (1905); Gustav Hénnike, Das Judenchristentum im 1 u. 2 
Jahrhundert, 69-74 (1908); Lagrange, Le Messianisme chez les Jutfs, 
37-136 (1909). 

2 Oracula Sybillina iii, 652 ff.; Henoch 46, 4-6; 52, 4-9; Afoc. 
Baruch 39, 7-40, 23 70, 2-103 72, 2-6. 

3 Henoch 45, 33 55, 43 62, 2-11; 69, 27; IV Esdras 13, 25-28, 32-38. 

RIV 222,080 >) Cl, 12 en0CK, O25 4. 


166 Christ and the Critics 


Gentiles shall fall down before them, shall render them 
homage, cry to them for mercy and listen to their every 
word.! They will cut the throats of sinners and mercilessly 
kill them.? The Lord will deliver their enemies into their 
hands, and their yoke shall weigh heavily upon them.? “ Then 
shalt thou be happy, O Israel, and shalt mount on the neck 
and wings of the eagle.’’* “ And God will raise thee on high 
and make thee float in the starry heaven, and thou shalt look 
down upon thine enemies on earth, and thou shalt recognize 
them and rejoice.’’® 

Simultaneously with the national world supremacy, Israel 
will be inundated with an abundance of all the sensible bless- 
ings conferred by the Messiah. The old Jerusalem, the object 
of longing to every Israelite, will be pulled down and super- 
seded, and the Messiah'will bring a new Jerusalem® which had 
existed before the Fall in Paradise, had since then been pre- 
served in heaven, and from there will now descend.’ This 
new Jerusalem will far surpass the ancient one in beauty and 
splendour. The Messiah will gather together in it all pious 
Israelites.? ‘ All who have been killed or dispersed ”’ shall be 
brought home again in chariots on the wings of the wind.?° 
In Jerusalem, around the Temple, the tower of which will 
stretch upward to heaven,'! the happy Israelites will revel in 
the protection and blessing of the Messiah.’? “Bliss will 
everywhere manifest itself, and peace will appear... . 
Health will descend in the dew, and sickness will depart. . . . 
And joy shall prevail over the whole earth.’’!3 The wild beasts 
will come to serve mankind.’* Nature will be fabulously pro- 
lific.t® On one vine-stock there shall be 1,000 vines, and on 
one vine 1,000 bunches of grapes, and on one bunch 1,000 
grapes, and one single grape will give a cask of wine.'® 
People will not become old and weary of life. At the age of 
1,000 years they will still be as children and boys.!” They will 
live till they have gotten 1,000 children.4® Women will bear 
children without pain; reapers shall not become weary, nor 
shall builders be exhausted.1® All the pious shall swim in 


1 Henoch, go, 30. 2)72., 04, 73 98, 12: 8 id.,.05;)3-7- 

4 The Roman eagle is certainly here meant. See Schitirer ii, 540. 

5 Assumptio Mosts to, 8-10. 

© Hervch: 8%, 05 G0, 28,/29; cf. J“d. 1, 17,27, 203. Orac, S109 eee 
657, 776. 

7 Apoc. Baruch 4, 2-6; 1V Esdras 7, 26; 8, 523; 10, 44-59. 


8 Hench 53,05 0, 28; IV Esdrds, 7, 26. 9 Henoch go, 30. 
10 ad; 59500; 722. Tl Orac. Sibyl yaa 
12 IV Esdras 7, 27-283 12, 343; 13, 48-50. 13 Apoc. Baruch 73, 2. 


14 Orvac. Sibyll. iii, 787-794; Apoc. Baruch 73-74. 

15 Ovac, Sibyll. 111, 620-623; Henoch 10, 18-10. 

16 Apoc. Baruch 209, 5-8; see Papias in /reneus v, 33, 3, where instead 
of 1,000, 10,000 is the figure given. 

lt fub. 23; 27. 18 Henoch 10, 17; Apoc. Baruch 73, 3. 

19! A Doc), Bat Ue U7 A 2-338 7) FAT, 


Content of Cbrist’s Messianic Consciousness 167 


riches. The Messiah will bestow upon them all the joys and 
pleasures which they can possibly desire. ? 

We see that all this sounds as genuinely rabbinical as the 
rabbinical hopes of the Messiah to be found in Mishna, the 
Talmud and Midrash itself. Like the rabbinical ideas of the 
Messiah, those of the apocalyptists are also a product of 
narrow Jewish patriotism.* In both cases the kingdom of the 
Messiah and the kingdom of God are looked upon as essenti- 
ally a national, sensuously glorious world-power, at the head 
of which Jehovah and his representative, the Messiah, are to 
reign. 

The eschatological and apocalyptic conceptions of the 
Messiah are far inferior to the general Jewish conceptions 
characteristic of the Synagogue. Although the Messiah of 
the Rabbis is more or less identical with the national king, he 
had, nevertheless, a very real and (viewed from the stand- 
point of Jewish patriotism) also an ideal significance. He was, 
by his own personal holiness and justice, to make himself the 
Redeemer of the nation, though certainly only in a purely 
earthly sense. He was himself, then, finally to consummate 
the great national act, and so, with good reason, wield the 
sceptre over Israel. The whole Messianic national drama is, 
therefore, psychologically, from beginning to end, not badly 
constructed by the Rabbis, even if it does remain only a 
drama. But nothing of this applies to the eschatological and 
apocalyptic Messiah. He does nothing, teaches nothing, 
redeems nothing, and does not even exist on this earth. He 
merely springs upon the stage as a Deus ex machina, drives 
those who are not Jews out of the theatre, and amuses himself 
at their expense, together with the remaining pious Israelites. 
No wonder that this illogical Messianic réle is not found at all 
in many of the apocalyptic writings, and that they do not 
even mention the Messiah, but only bring about the shifting 
of the scenes—from this world to that, and from pagan to 
Jewish power—by means of unnamed agencies, or even by 
Jehovah himself, the God of the Jewish covenant. 

With the Old Testament notion of the Messiah the eschato- 
logical-apocalyptic notion has nothing more to do. The latter 
takes from the Old Testament only the model of Daniel’s Son 
of Man, yet it detaches this from the Son of David, the 
Servant of God and Emmanuel, as well as, in general, from 
the whole teaching of the Old Testament concerning the 
kingdom of God, and retains only an imaginary, ethereal 
figure instead of the complete portrait of the Messiah. 


POrac. S10yll. ii, 783. 

BV SEZ Tas 7,255 °0,.9-5,:. 12,94; Apoc, Baruch Ao, 25 73;\1. 

38 It cannot, however, be denied that apocalyptic literature contains, 
nevertheless, also many golden grains obtained from the Prophets or 
from a tradition which had been nourished by the Prophets, 


168 Christ and the Critics 


We have herewith completed our pourtrayal of the Jewish 
notions of the Messiah, one of which may be called the official 
rabbinical Messianic conception, the other the eschatological 
conception, officially forbidden by the rabbis. It remains to be 
said that, together with the views which have been just men- 
tioned, and which culminate essentially in the expectation of a 
theocratical political kingdom under the supremacy of the 
Torah as interpreted by the scribes, there were present 
occasionally others also which struck a much more ideal and 
deeply religious note. 

And yet, although it is certain that these neighbouring 
currents of thought existed, it is difficult to indicate them in 
detail. Jewish literature leaves us almost in ignorance in this 
respect. Yet some rays of light from the Gospels illumine 
these circles of pious Jews, whose ideal of the Messiah was 
derived principally from the predictions of the Prophets, and 
therefore was far superior to the common Jewish notion in 
simplicity and spirituality. 

At the commencement of the Gospel of St Luke we at once 
meet with such a circle. Zachary, the father of John the 
Baptist, utters his views of the Messiah in the following 
words : “‘ Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: because he hath 
visited and wrought the redemption of his people; and hath 
raised up an horn of salvation to us in the house of David his 
servant; as he spoke by the mouth of his holy Prophets, who 
are from the beginning : salvation from our enemies, and from 
the hand of all that hate us; to perform mercy to our fathers, 
and to remember his holy testament ; the oath which he sware 
to Abraham our father, that he would grant to us, that, being 
delivered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve him 
without fear, in holiness and justice before him, all our days. 
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: 
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his 
ways; to give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the 
remission of their sins, through the bowels of the mercy of our 
God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us; to 
enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of 
death; to direct our feet into the way of peace” (Luke i, 
67-79). 

Here the Messianic-davidic kingdom already has spiritual- 
ized features; holiness, righteousness, knowledge of salvation 
and redemption of the people of Israel are essential charac- 
teristics of the Messiahship. Yes, the Messiah will bring 
salvation, light and peace to the Gentiles also, who sit in 
darkness and the shadow of death. This is a high level of 
Messianic conception, very remote from the average Jewish 
mind; and yet it was so purely Jewish in sentiment and 
expression that it could not possibly have been invented by 
the Christian Evangelist. The Christians who had witnessed 


Content of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 169 


the Saviour’s suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, 
thought and spoke quite differently of the glorified Messiah. 

A similar conclusion is reached by a study of the Messianic 
ideas of the aged Simeon, who was a just and devout man 
waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was 
upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost 
that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s 
Christ (Luke ii, 25). He now takes the child Jesus in his 
arms and praises God, saying: ‘‘ Now thou dost dismiss thy 
servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace, because my 
eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before 
the face of all peoples; a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, 
and the glory of thy people Israel’’ (Luke ii, 28-32). 

Here also the Messiah is no longer merely the glory of the 
people of Israel which is to make the Gentiles feel the theo- 
cratical kingdom of the Torah; he is also the light which is 
to bring the religious revelation to the Gentiles as well as to 
the Israelites. Instead of the glorious Messianic kingdom, 
Simeon foresees in spiritual vision even the persecution and 
suffering of the Messiah, when he says to Mary: “ Behold 
this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many 
in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. And thy 
own soul a sword shall pierce’’ (Luke ii, 34, 35). 

It is true it can with reason be objected (but not from the 
side of rationalistic liberalism) that Simeon and Zachary had 
attained to a higher conception of the Messiah by means of a 
special divine illumination. But it is none the less true that 
the divine illumination was bestowed upon them precisely 
because it found in them an instrument which had not been 
weakened by narrow political and worldly views of the 
Messiah. There were, therefore, certainly in Judaism at that 
time spiritual oases in which the Messianic ideas of the 
Prophets still lived. 

We may go still further and assert that the number of those 
who did not regard the national theocratic kingdom as the 
chief characteristic and the principal work of the Messiah was 
greater than might appear at the first glance and in the light 
of the rabbinical and apocalyptic literature. Adolf Harnack 
remarks in reference to this point : ‘‘ Among all those in whom 
the moral and truly religious elements began to gain the 
upper hand, the image of the political and warlike king must 
have withdrawn itself, and that of the prophet, which had 
always gently influenced their imaginations, must have taken 
its place. It was hoped that the Messiah would bring God 
near, would create, in some way, justice, and would free souls 
from their torturing spiritual burdens.’’ That there were 
then among the Jewish people those who believed and 
expected such a Messiah, or did not at least reject him in 
advance, already explains to us the history of John the 


170 Christ and the Critics 


Baptist as we read it in our Gospels. How elastic the concep- 
tions of the Messiah must have been—if this utterly un- 
kingly preacher of repentance in a mantle of camel’s hair, who 
announced to the degenerate people merely the approaching 
judgement, could be himself taken for the Messiah! And 
when we further read in the Gospels that not a few among 
the people took Jesus for the Messiah, only because he 
preached powerfully and healed by working miracles,+ how 
thoroughly changed the Messianic picture appears! It is true 
they saw in these works of the Saviour only the beginning, 
and expected that the worker of miracles would soon discard 
the last veil of concealment and “ establish the kingdom; but 
this was enough for them to be able to greet, as the Promised 
One, a man with whose origin and previous life they were 
acquainted, and who had done nothing but preach repentance, 
announce the nearness of the kingdom of heaven and heal 
thersick? 

Nevertheless, when it really came to the point of recognizing 
him definitely as the Messiah, in spite of the fact that he had 
positively repudiated the establishment of the earthly Mes- 
sianic kingdom, the higher conception of the Messiah, even 
in that class of the people, did not stand the test, but rejected 
him who dared to say : ‘“‘ My kingdom is not of this world.”’ 


I].—Curist’s IDEA OF THE MESSIAH. 


1. Rejection of the Messianic Notions of the Rabbis and 
Apocalyptic Writers. 


In view of the explanations thus far given concerning the 
Old Testament, rabbinical and apocalyptic conceptions of 
the Messiah, it should now no longer be very difficult to 
determine in what sense Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. 

The most obvious thing to be done is, first of all, to com- 
pare the Messianic ideas of Jesus with those of the Rabbis, 
because these were nearest to him in point of time, were 
everywhere in circulation around him, met him wherever he 
went, were on everybody’s lips, and were firmly rooted in the 
heads of almost all his associates and of his people. It is 
easily comprehensible that the evolutionary historical view, 
according to which Jesus simply developed out of the Jewish 
society of that time, makes the Saviour at once adopt the 
generally understood, common idea of the Messiah held by 
his rabbinical contemporaries. 

But nowhere has the evolutionary theory suffered a more 
decisive defeat than here. Between rabbinical pharisaism and 


1 That the Messiah would prove himself to be such by miracles and 
prophetic knowledge was the opinion of all Jews. This is shown both 
from rabbinical literature and from many passages in the Gospels. 

2 Wesen des Christentums, 86 f. 


Content of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consciousness 171 


Jesus exist the greatest differences imaginable. The more 
important critics of modern times have not been able to shut 
their eyes to this consideration. To-day almost all of them 
give up the idea of seeing in the Messianic notions of the 
Pharisees the model which Jesus is said to have copied. 

It is true some Jewish scholars’ still maintain that Jesus 
united in his person simply pharisaical thought with a Gali- 
lean temperament. Also, according to Ed. von Hartmann, 
‘it never occurred to him to make the slightest change in the 
popular expectation and conception of the Messiah and his 
task.’’? A. Neumann? and Otto Pfleiderer* assert, all facts 
to the contrary, that Jesus adopted the ideal of the Messiah 
with all the characteristics which it had for his time. Only 
they prudently add that he did reject the warlike side of the 
rabbinical notion of the Messiah, and that he did not wish to 
be a Messianic king in the sense of a liberator of the people 
and a conqueror of the Gentiles.° But the popular notion of 
the Messiah had essentially only this one side, as is clearly 
demonstrated by what we have previously adduced. Late 
critics, therefore, who still describe the Saviour as the 
rabbinical Messiah, are able to do so only from ignor- 
ance of what the rabbinical notions of the Messiah really 
were. 

The question is, moreover, settled by the undeniable fact 
that Jesus was persecuted and condemned to death by his 
pharisaical contemporaries because he_ prohibited the 
popular rabbinical conceptions of the Messiah, and opposed 
to them his own personal, fundamentally different Messianic 
ideas. 

But did this Messianic idea of Jesus agree, perhaps, with 
the eschatological and apocalyptic notions of the Messiah? 
The evolutionary school must evidently assert this, unless it 
is willing to give up the idea of seeing in Jesus only a 
splendid personification and further development of ideas 
already existing at the time. Hence the strong eschatological 
tendency in the latest research into christology. Albrecht 
Schweitzer, the historian of this research, entitles the chapter 
of his book dealing with this subject ‘‘ Logical Eschatology,”’ 
and proclaims himself the most extreme and decided leader of 
the eschatological school. ® 

The eschatological view of the life of Jesus had been already 


1 Revue des Etudes Jutves, t. lil, 9 (1906). 

2 Das Christentum des Neuen Testaments, 58 (1905). 

3 Jesus, wer er geschichtlich war, 154 (1904). 

4 Das Urchristentum, 2nd ed., i, 668; Die Entstehung des Chrtsten- 
he 58 (1905). 

5 Neumann, J.c.; Pfleiderer, Entstehung, 101. 

6 Albrecht Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede (Tiibingen, 1906), and 
also previously in his pamphlet, Das Messianitats- und Leidensgehetm- 
niss; eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu (Tiibingen, 1901). 


172 Christ and the Critics 


introduced by Reimarus,! Keim,? Colani,? Volkmar* and 
Wilhelm Weissenbach.°® 

Wilhelm Baldensperger® undertook to judge all the Mes- 
sianic utterances of Jesus from the viewpoint of eschatology. 
For him Jesus is the fiery prophet who announces simply the 
apocalyptic final catastrophe, in the sense of the Book of 
Henoch, as immediately at hand, and represents himself as the 
man who will speedily appear in the clouds of heaven to carry 
out this catastrophe. 

Johannes Weiss’ connects the’ views of Jesus concerning the 
kingdom of God entirely with this catastrophe. The king- 
dom of God, instead of being a Messianic organization of 
quiet and gradual development, which grows here on earth as 
divine seed, and at the end of the world will be brought to 
heaven as a precious harvest, whirls thither, according to 
Weiss, in an apocalyptic hurricane, which destroys heaven 
and earth, in order to create for itself room for a new world 
era. 

Now, last of all, comes Schweitzer, who reproaches his 
predecessors because they acquiesced in the idea of interpret- 
ing the Messiah and the kingdom of God eschatologically 
instead of “ letting the whole public activity of Jesus, and the 
events connected or not connected with it, be elucidated by 
eschatology.’’® Thus he drags the whole Gospel over to the 
volcanic ground of the apocalyptic writings, attributing to 
the Saviour a specially apocalyptic soul, and making him out 
to be an apocalyptic fanatic who sees, thinks, preaches and 
hopes for nothing else than a frightful cataclysm. ? 

In Germany the eschatologists were joined, among others, 
by G. Dalman,!° Hollmann,!! Zimmermann?’ and the Zirich 
professor Arnold Meyer.?* In transferring the ideas of the 
German to French soil, Alfred Loisy evaporated them in his 
usual way.'4 


1 Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 16-20. 222., 21%, 
3 Jésus-Christ et les croyances messtaniques de son temps (Strassburg, 
1864). 


4 Jesus Nazarenus und die erste christliche Zeit (Ztirich, 1882). 

5 Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu (1873). 

€ Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Lichte der messiantschen Hoff- 
mungen seiner Zeit, 2nd ed. (Strassburg, 1892). A third edition with 
another title appeared in 1903. 


7 Die Predigt Jesu vom Retche Gottes, 2nd ed., 58-175 (Gottingen, — 


1900). 8 Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 347. 

9 2d2., 347-395. 10 Die Worte Jesu, 259 (Leipzig, 1808). 

11 Welche Religion hatten die Juden als Jesus auftrat? 73 (1905). 

12 Der historische Wert der dltesten Ueberlieferung im Markus evan- 
gelium, 97, 128 (Leipzig, 1905). 

13 Das Leben nach dem Evangelium Jesu, 5 (1905). 

14 Loisy, L’Evangile et PEglise, 53 ff. (Paris, 1902); Les Evangztles 
synoptigues, 192 f., 212 f., 242 f. (Macon, 1907). He was joined by 
Chapuis, Revue de Théologte et de Philosophie, 15 f. (1904); Monnier, 
La mission historique de Jésus, 39, 82 f. (1906); A. Causse, Z’Evolution 
de Pespérance messianique dans le Christianisme primitif (Paris, 1908). 


Content of Cbrist’s Messianic Consciousness 173 


We must be grateful to the latest eschatologists that they, 
in contrast to the halfway attitude of their predecessors, knew 
how to adapt the Jewish apocalyptic ideas in their full extent 
to the entire life of Jesus. As Johannes Weiss and Albrecht 
Schweitzer both rightly claim, the watchword can be only 
‘* Either eschatological or not eschatological.”! Either the 
apocalyptic eschatology can be carried out logically, genuinely, 
and without exception, or we cannot suppose Jesus to have 
been under the influence of the apocalyptic notions of his 
contemporaries at all. 

But this clear, resolute and logical statement of the case at 
once amounts to a refutation and decided rejection of the 
eschatological and apocalyptic thesis. Merely a glance into 
the Gospel, on the one hand, and into Jewish apocalyptists, 
on the other, is sufficient to let us see the impossibility of 
logically interpreting the life of Jesus eschatologically. The 
life of Jesus is radiant with bright, sunny optimism ; his whole 
being is, together with the greatest moral seriousness, full of 
joyous, cheerful sentiments which even scandalize the sancti- 
monious Pharisees. The Jewish apocalyptic ideas, on the 
contrary, emit poison through their gloomy pessimism, which 
considers the whole world as hopelessly lost, since it looks 
upon it as not only morally but physically evil. The Gospel 
of Jesus, in spite of its strong tendency to deal with the future 
and with the next world, is full of much that is real and 
valuable in relation to this one. It is a unique union of the 
Now and Then, so that the cleavages between this life and 
the next are all bridged over, and its whole view of the 
universe impels man towards something broad and great—a 
mighty line passing through time and eternity. 

The apocalyptic views are those of a somnambulist, to 
whom the present is merely an appearance and an illusion, 
without any connection with the zon beyond this world of 
time. Life in the present, therefore, is without value or 
reality—merely a mode of reckoning with the future and 
trifling with an approaching ghost. The Gospel of Jesus 
insists strongly upon moral improvement, religious depth, 
sincere piety and inward holiness (‘‘ Be ye perfect even as your 
Father in heaven is perfect ’’), and promotes this perfection 
through untiring and undaunted teaching and admonition 
from person to person, from circle to circle, from infinitely 
patient labour on a small scale to intensive work upon the 
masses. The apocalyptic school, however, does not take a 
step to further the improvement and the ennobling of man, 
and conceives the future Messianic age from a purely cosmo- 
logical standpoint, devoid of any higher religious life and any 
deeper union with God, and meanwhile thinks of nothing but 
awaiting with open mouth and folded arms the signs from 
heaven of the final catastrophe—‘‘ The Jews require signs ”’ 


1 Schweitzer, 235. 


174 Christ and the Critics 


(1 Cor. i, 22). The Gospel of Jesus, who works among the 
people and suffers and dies upon the Cross for sinners, instead 
of, like the apocalyptist, sitting down in a corner and writing 
one of those wonderful books which can never sufliciently gloat 
over the drastic punishment of the Gentiles and the beatifica- 
tion of Judaism—the Gospel of Jesus, although imbued with 
all possible love for its ancestral soil and for the chosen people 
of God, is nevertheless thoroughly universal and remote from 
all Jewish narrowness, and, above all, is opposed to the 
national, political and material Jewish dreams. The eschato- 
logical apocalyptist has eyes and ears only for petty, limited 
Jewish patriotism and the chauvinistic, sensuously intoxicat- 
ing music of the future. Truly, to try to bring together and to 
blend in one the Gospel.of Jesus and the later Jewish teachings 
of the apocalyptists, is to turn the facts completely upside 
down. 

The best connoisseurs and historians of later Judaism, like 
Bousset, Schirer and Weilhausen, all of whom also belong 
to the liberal Protestant school, pronounce every such attempt 
hopeless. + 

In fact, the eschatologists accomplish their artistic feat only 
by diminishing the differences of both sides. To Weiss, 
Schweitzer and Loisy the apocalyptic appears only in its escha- 
tological, futuristic form, while its national and political soul 
is entirely, or almost entirely, overlooked. Baldensperger 
places such a different estimate on the eschatological and 
apocalyptic views that they can finally be defined as a 
Messianic expectation, freed from the earthly political ideal, 
and transported into the region of the supernatural.2 That 
the eschatological catastrophe, with the appearance of the 
Messiah for the Last Judgement, is only the mould or melting- 
pot which contains the worldly patriotic hopes of Judaism, is 
forgotten by the rabid eschatologists. 

They refashion the Gospel also in a similar way. What- 
ever in any way suits their ideas of eschatology is retained as 
genuine Gospel truth and the word of the Lord; but the 
utterances and motives of Jesus, which are not eschatological, 
are interpreted in an eschatological sense, and all that is un- 
adaptable in this way is discarded as an unhistorical accretion. 
Thus they succeed in forcing the toned-down likeness of 
Jesus on to the toned-down model of the apocalyptic. But as 
soon as the complete Gospel is compared with the complete 


1 W. Bousset, Jesu Predigt in threm Gegensatz zum Judentum (1892) ; 
Die jiidische Apokalyptik in threr religionsgeschichtlichen Herkunft 
und threr Bedeutung fir das N. T. (1903); E. Schtirer, Das messiantsche 
Selbsthewusstsein Jesu Christi (1903); Jul. Wellhausen, /sraelitische 
und jiudische Geschichte, 373, 386, 6th ed. (Berlin, 1907); Skzzzen vi, 
187 ff. 

iepiidenarereen Die messiantsch-apokalyptischen Hoffnungen des 
Judentums, 173 (Strassburg, 1903). 


Content of Cbrist’s Messianic Consctousness 175 


apocalyptic, the alleged kinship between them, to say nothing 
of their alleged identity, vanishes. 

This applies especially to the Messianic passages in the 
Gospel. Eschatology would prove itself correct only if all the 
Messianic utterances, without exception, identified themselves 
with apocalyptic ideas—that is, if Jesus did not claim to be 
the Messiah in the present world, but hoped to become so 
only in the future at his second advent, and by means of this 
second advent to preside over the Last Judgement. But the 
utterances of Jesus in the Gospel say just the contrary. 

Already, in his earthly life, hts activity, his suffering and 
death, Jesus claims to be the Messiah, and wishes to be con- 
sidered as such. His return for the Last Judgement is only 
the solemn conclusion, the highest and final triumph of his 
Messianic revelation. 

John the Baptist sends messengers to inquire of Jesus 
whether he is the One who should come—that is, the Messiah 
—and Jesus answers by pointing out the miracles wrought by 
him, which, according to tradition, indicate the coming and 
the presence of the Messianic era, and prove the performer of 
these miracles to be the Messiah, who has already appeared 
Baoisiaetive (Matt..xi,) 53° Luke vii,,22; Isasxxx, 5); Ixi, #1). 
If John, as the eschatologists assert without cause, in making 
his inquiry, had thought of the apocalyptic Son of Man 
coming for the Last Judgement, then it is only so much the 
more significant that Jesus energetically brings his answer 
down to the level of present-day realities, and proves himself 
to be the Saviour, who has already come and is already 
engaged in Messianic activity. 

In Cesarea Philippi, Jesus inquires what the views of the 
multitude and the disciples are concerning the Son of Man as 
he was then living before them. Peter confesses at once: 
“Thou art the Messiah, the Son of God.’’ And Jesus com- 
mends the Apostle, declares that his faith has been super- 
naturally revealed to him, and corroborates it without the 
slightest qualification. ‘‘ Then he commanded his disciples 
that they should tell no one that he was Jesus, the Christ ”’ 
(Matt. xvi, 20). 


The woman of Samaria says to him: “I know that the 
Messias cometh (who is called Christ): therefore when he 
cometh, he will tell us all things.” The woman of Samaria, 


therefore, is not speaking of the apocalyptic Messiah, who 
will come only to judge the world, but the Messiah who “ will 
tell us all things,’’ who will appear as a prophet, and who is 
moved by love for his people, not by speculations about the 
approaching end of the world. And Jesus declares: “I am 
he who am speaking with thee.’? The Samaritans, however, 
fascinated by the charm of his speech, believed on him on 


1 Loisy, Z’Zvangile et TE glise, 54. 


176 Christ and the Critics 


account of his teaching, and said: ‘“‘ We ourselves have heard 
him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world’’ 
(John iv, 25 and 41, 42). 

Jesus asks the man who was born blind : ‘‘ Dost thou believe 
in the Son of God?’’ He answered and said: ‘‘ Who is he, 
Lord, that I may believe in him?” And Jesus said to him: 
‘* Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with 
thee’’ (John ix, 35-37). Thereupon the Jews in the Temple 


surrounded him and said to him: ‘‘ How long dost thou 
hold our souls in suspense? If thou be the Christ, tell us 
plainly.’ Jesus answered them: “J speak to you and you 


believe not. The works that I do in the name of my Father, 
they give testimony of me” (John x, 24). Therefore, Jesus 
not only claims to be the Messiah already here on earth, but 
he casts in their teeth the fact that he has given the most real 
and infallible proofs of his present Messiahship. 

Soon after he has to justify himself before the highest 
tribunal of the nation for this very confession. The High 
Priest asks him: “ Art thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed 
God?’’ “I am,’’? was the answer (Mark xiv, 61, 62). 
Caiphas presses the question under the most solemn oath: 
‘I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if 
thou be the Christ, the Son of God.’’ ‘ Thou hast said it,’’ 
affirms Jesus (Matt. xxvi, 63). “Art thou, then, the Son of 
God?’’ “You say that I am,’’ replies Jesus (Luke xxii, 
67-70), and adds: “‘ You shall see the Son of Man sitting on 
the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the 
clouds of heaven ”’ (Mark xiv, 62). 

Both question and answer are astonishingly clear. In vain 
do the eschatologists assert that Jesus, by these last words, 
wished to explain the confession that he is the Messiah in the 
apocalyptic sense, that he will not become the Messiah until 
he returns for the Last Judgement. Rather does Jesus say 
most emphatically that he is already the real Messiah, and 
that he will come again, as the Messiah, at the end of the 
world. 

The Saviour expresses himself in precisely the same way 
before Pilate. The Prefect asks him: “ Art thou the king of 
the Jews ?’’—that is, the Messianic king ?? ‘“ Thou sayest it,”’ 
answers Jesus affirmatively (Luke xxiii, 3; Mark xv, 2; 
Matt. xxvii, 11). Yet he at once repudiates the possible mis- 
conception that he claims to be an earthly, worldly Messianic 
king : “Thou sayest that I am a king. Yet my kingdom is 
not of this world. For this was I born, and for this came I 
into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth’’ 
(John xviii, 36, 37). Thus Jesus claims to be the king of 

1 Loisy, p. 54. 

2 That this is the correct interpretation of the question appears from 
Luke xxiil, 2. 


Contentiof Christ's Messianic Consciousness 177 


truth, the spiritual Messiah, and this already now; in fact, 
from the first moment of his earthly existence; not that he 
will become the Messiah only at the future judgement. His 
Messianic kingdom is not of this world, but it does exist 
already in this world. 


2. Adoption and Extension of the Old Testament Notion 
of the Messiah. 


We come thus unexpectedly to the positive development of 
Jesus’ notion of the Messiah. This is proved already to a 
considerable extent from the negative, repellent attitude of 
the Saviour towards the rabbinical and apocalyptic Messianic 
ideas of his contemporaries, just as every step which we have 
still to take in regard to the Gospels signifies, at the same 
time, a renewed rejection of these notions. 

First of all, Jesus’ conception of the Kingdom of God. 
According to the statements previously made, it may be con- 
sidered certain that Jesus did not wish to found either a 
worldly theocracy of a political and material nature, in the 
rabbinical sense, nor a post-mundane theocracy of that nature 
in the apocalyptic sense. Rather does everything indicate 
that his ideal was directed to a spiritual, religious kingdom 
of God, in this world at its commencement, in the next world 
at its completion, and in its nature wholly supernatural. All 
the positive utterances of Jesus regarding the kingdom of 
God are confined within this compass. 

The forerunner John had announced the nearness of the 
kingdom. ‘‘ Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand’’ (Matt. iii, 2). Thereby he points to Jesus. Jesus 
himself takes up the same line of preaching. ‘‘He came 
preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying: 
The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is at hand; 
repent and believe the Gospel’’ (Mark i, 14, 15). He also 
sent out the Twelve at first with the simplest announcement 
of the near approach of the kingdom into the world: “ Preach, 
saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. x, 7). 
The coming of Jesus and the commencement of his activity 
are equivaleat, therefore, to the coming and beginning of the 
realization of the kingdom of heaven., 

The preaching of the coming of the kingdom is imme- 
diately connected with the revelation of the miraculous powers 
of the Saviour. Not only does he himself make his own steps 
conspicuous by miracles, but he transmits the power of work- 
ing them to his disciples and fellow-preachers of the kingdom : 
*“ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out 
devils ’’ (Matt. x, 8 and parallels). Through the performance 
of these Messianic deeds the proof will be established, not 


only that the kingdom is approaching (Luke ix, ro), but that 
I. 12 


178 Christ and the Critics 


it is already present: “If I by the Spirit of God cast out 
devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you” (Matt. 
xii, 28). He considers his victories over the devils as so many 
blows directed against the kingdom of Satan, and as a 
triumph of the kingdom of God which has already arrived. 
In exactly the same way he also calls his other miracles into 
the lists as proofs for the kingdom of heaven which has 
already begun (Matt. xi, 4-6). 

At the same time he sets about proclaiming the law of the 
new kingdom. Moving through cities and hamlets, he 
preaches his doctrine everywhere, in the synagogues, in the 
market-places, on lakes and on the slopes of mountains. This 
doctrine is so truly the Magna Charta of the kingdom of 
heaven that it is laconically called the ‘‘ glad tidings [| Gospel | 
of the kingdom of God” (Matt. iv, 14; Luke vili, 1), “‘ the 
mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mark iv, 11), “‘ the preach- 
ing of the kingdom of God” (Luke ix, 2); ‘‘ the Law and the 
Prophets were until John; from that time the kingdom of 
God is preached ’’ (Luke xvi, 16). Even the humblest of those 
who accept the message of the kingdom is, therefore, greater 
than John himself, who was only a forerunner of the kingdom 
(Matt. xi, 11; Luke vii, 28). Referring to his own person and 
his Gospel, Jesus can say to the Pharisees: ‘‘ Lo, the kingdom 
of God is within you ’’ (Luke xvii, 21). 

A fundamental condition, therefore, for admission into the 
kingdom is faith in, and acceptance of, the Gospel (Mark 
Xvi, 16; John ili, 18, 36). To this is added the spiritual second 
birth, “ of water and of the Holy Spirit’’ (John iti, 3, 5), for 
the forgiveness of sins (Mark iv, 12), as well as a new manner 
of life on the ground of this spiritual second birth and in 
accordance with the commandments of the Gospel (Matt. 
vii, 21; xix, 8). Thus the kingdom of God presupposes a 
complete spiritual transformation in every individual, and 
requires, therefore, a decidedly chivalrous sentiment and 
energy. Whoever does not prize and seek the ‘‘ kingdom 
of God and his justice” above everything (Matt. vi, 33), 
whoever ‘‘ putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back ” 
(Luke ix, 62), whoever does not put into the background, 
and, if need be, abandon everything (Matt. v, 29; Luke 
ix, 61; xvill, 29), and whoever is not ready to stake his own 
life also (Luke xiv, 26) in order to gain the kingdom of God, 
is not fit for it. 

It is, therefore, easy to understand that the kingdom of God 
can extend only slowly and by constant efforts. It will neither 
announce itself by an earthly coup d’état, in the sense of the 
Rabbis, with lightning speed and great external pomp, nor 
will it fall from heaven as a complete Malkuth, in the apoca- 
lyptic sense (Luke xvii, 20). At its beginning it will be small 
and inconspicuous, so that the great ones of the earth will not 


Content of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consciousness 179 


notice it at all. Very gradually, however, it will grow, like 
the grain of mustard seed, until it becomes a tree, and will 
work from within outward, like the leaven, till it has trans- 
formed the whole world (Matt. xiii, 31; Luke xiil, 19). As 
the grain quietly germinates, sends up its blades, grows into 
ears, blossoms and finally is garnered in its maturity, so it is 
with the kingdom of God (Mark iv, 26-29) and with the 
children of the kingdom (Matt. xiii, 38). The Jews prove 
themselves to be unfruitful soil; therefore the kingdom of 
God will be taken from them and given to a nation yielding 
the fruits thereof (Matt. xxi, 43). ‘‘ And this Gospel of the 
kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony’ 
to all nations, and then shall the consummation come ’’—the 
judgement (Matt. xxiv, 14). 

The judgement is the gate of entrance into the kingdom of 
God in the next world. It is closed against the kingdom of 
Satan, and condemns to the punishment of hell all those who 
on earth have belonged to the kingdom of evil. On the other 
hand, it is opened to the children of the kingdom of God, who 
finally inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foun- 
dation of the world (Matt. xxv, 34). The kingdom of God 
on this earth is, both in its entirety and in its application to 
the individual man, only a commencement, a preliminary step, 
a preparation, for the everlasting kingdom of heaven in the 
world to come. In its final perfection, therefore, the kingdom 
is not yet complete. It is only in the act of approaching, and 
we must continually pray for its coming: “Thy kingdom 
come’’ (Luke xi, 2). As often as Jesus speaks of entry into 
the kingdom of God, he presupposes the kingdom, in this 
sense, to be a future event (Matt. v, 20; vil, 21). Whenever 
he pronounces the children of the kingdom of God on earth 
blessed he promises them the kingdom of God in the next 
world as a reward: ‘‘ For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 
“For they shall see God.’’ ‘Then shall the righteous shine 


1 In opposition to the assertion made by some radical critics that 
Jesus wishes, in narrow chauvinism, to limit the kingdom of heaven 
to the Jews, Max Meinertz, Jesus und die Heidenmission (1908), and 
Fr. Spitta, Jesus und die Hetdenmtssiton (1909), prove that the Saviour 
wished to extend his Messianic salvation also to the Gentiles. See 
J. B. Major’s ‘‘ Did Christ contemplate the Admission of the Gentiles 
into the Kingdom of Heaven?” (Expositor, 385-399, Nov., 1909). Spitta, 
who is certainly beyond suspicion, expresses himself thus (p. 109): ‘* In 
direct opposition to Harnack’s judgement, that the mission to the 
Gentiles did not lie within Jesus’ field of vision, I am not content with 
the opinion that he imposed it on the hearts of his disciples after his 
resurrection, but I maintain that this task formed the desire of his soul 
from the very beginning, and that he not only did n-t abandon it when 
Gentiles came in his way, but actually sought them out by travelling 
where they were. One can, therefore, speak of Jesus as being really 
the first Christian missionary, who not only laid the foundation for 
Christian missions to the Gentiles by his ‘ intense universalism’ but 
whose own activity signifies its beginning.”’ 


180 Christ and the Critics 


forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” ‘‘ And there 
shall come from the east and the west and the north and the 
south and shall sit down in the kingdom of God” (Luke xiii, 
29). ‘* That you may eat and drink at my table in my king- 
dom ” (Luke xxii, 30). ‘‘ I will not drink from henceforth of 
this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with 
you new in the kingdom of my Father” (Matt. xxvi, 29). 

If in this description of the blessedness of the kingdom 
there are some discordant tones which remind one of sensuous 
and earthly enjoyments, they are to be interpreted only meta- 
phorically. The whole teaching of Jesus in reference to the 
kingdom is so essentially spiritual, and he so effectually 
excludes from it the coarse ideas of his contemporaries, that 
we must see in the above expressions merely a strikingly 
figurative representation of the supersensuous bliss and 
blessedness of the kingdom of heaven. 

It could not have been explained otherwise, either to the 
disciples, who were thoroughly earthly in their ideas, or to 
the Oriental, who always wants to speak figuratively and can 
scarcely learn in any other way., Hence Jesus always pourtrays 
the kingdom of heaven under the metaphor of a Passover 
feast, a wedding feast, or a joyful feast, which he prepares 
for his disciples, and at which he himself goes about to serve 
his guests (Luke xxii, 16, 18). The unveiled picture of the 
blessedness of the kingdom of God, invisible to mortal eyes 
and incomprehensible to the carnal mind, is “ the eternal life ’’ 
near God and with God, together with the ineffable joys which 
are connected with it. 

Accordingly, the most important part and the completion of 
Christ’s idea of the Messianic kingdom are located in the 
future, not in the present. Jesus always directs our gaze 
upward and forward, from the kingdom itself and life in it, 
both of which go forward under many difficulties here below 
to the blessed perfection of the kingdom of heaven. Hope, 
expectation, longing for infinite perfection and blessedness in 
the world to come—these form the fundamental character of 
the religion of Christ and of Christianity. 

Not exclusively, however. The founding of the kingdom 
and its growth are accomplished in this present world. The 
divine kingdom’s grain of mustard seed is cast into the earth, 
germinates there, and grows and ripens its fruit before it is 
brought into heaven by the harvesting of the Last Judgement 
(Matt. xiii, 39). There will there be garnered only what was 
here sown (Gal. vi, 7). Time on earth for the sowing, eternity 
in heaven for the harvest, and between them the great day of 
judgement, when the sowing and the reaping will be esti- 
mated and valued according to their merits. In the Messianic 
kingdom of Jesus there is nothing sudden, nothing irregular, 
nothing partial. The idea of Christ and Christianity concern- 


Content of Christ’s Messianic Consctfousness 181 


ing the kingdom is that of a spiritual supremacy of God in 
man and over man on earth, and eternal supremacy over him 
in heaven, and, on the other hand, a spiritual approach to God 
on the part of man here, and an indissoluble union with God 
above; and all this through the mediation of Jesus. 

In conformity with this is the interpretation which Jesus 
gives to the title Son of Man. We know that he bore by 
preference this Messianic title.t In Daniel vii, 23, etc., how- 
ever, this appellation denotes the Messiah exclusively as a 
supernatural judge of the world and a glorious prince in the 
future kingdom of God. It is true Jesus claims to be the Son 
of Man in this complete sense, and, indeed, in this sense 
before any other ;? but not exclusively. He prefers the title 
Son of Man precisely for the reason that it, on the one hand, 
in accordance with prophecy, expressed the future dignity and 
glory of the Messiah, while, on the other hand, according to 
the meaning of the word, it could be applied without difficulty 
to the entire activity and life of the Saviour in this world. 

Thus Jesus enlarges this official name for the Messiah 
earthward and earthwide. As the Son of Man he becomes 
the herald of the glad tidings of the kingdom and the bringer 
of the work of salvation (Matt. xi, 19; xil, 32; xvi, 13; 
Luke vii, 34; xi, 30). As the Son of Man he has the power to 
forgive sins (Matt. ix, 6; Mark 11, 10; Luke v, 24), and, in 
contrast to the Mosaic Law, to declare his own authority as a 
teacher, and his own mode of action (Matt. xii, 8; Mark ii, 28; 
Luke vi, 5). As the Son of Man he sows the seed of the 
kingdom of God in human souls (Matt. xiii, 37), and calls 
sinners to form a part of this kingdom (Matt. ix, 13; Mark 
fiyt7 ; Luke v, 32). As the Son of Man he is come, not to 
destroy, but to rescue; not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister and to give his life a ransom for many (Matt. 
XViill, I1; xx, 28 and parallels). As the Son of Man he has 
not where to lay his head (Matt. viii, 20). As the Son of Man 
he must suffer much, must be rejected by the people, must 
be condemned by the scribes and High Priests, must die, and 
on the third day rise again.* Only then does he come as the 
Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, attended by angels, in 
view of the whole earth, in order to judge the world, to inflict 
the merited punishment of hell upon the wicked, and to bring 
home the good into the kingdom of his Father. Accordingly, 
Jesus certainly does not assume the name and title of the Son 


1 See F. Bard, Der Sohn des Menschen. Eine Untersuchung tuber 
ay und Inhalt und Absicht solcher Jesus-Bezeichnung (Wismar, 
1908). 

Be ratee tx. 2780x235 x11, }4r $s xVEl) 27%) Mark viii, (98 $i x111, (265 
xiv, 62; Luke ix, 26; xii, 8, 40; xvii, 22; xviii, 8; xxi, 27, 36; xxii, 60. 

Petlatt xis 40) Xvi), 13.2" + xx,-18% Mark) vill, 313 1x,)8, 303 
M335 Luke ix, 22, 44; xviii, 31; xxiv, 7, 26; John iii, 14; viii, 28; 
Bil, 34: 


182 Christ and the Critics 


of Man merely in the eschatological meaning which it pos- 
sesses in Daniel, but he puts into it the whole Messianic 
vocation and the entire Messianic activity, which begins with 
the incarnation and is fully consummated only in eternity. 

Thereby the Son of Man takes the place of the Son of 
David. Everything of spiritual truth which, according to Old 
Testament prophecy, was found in the Messianic expression 
“Son of David,’’ is carried over by Jesus into the appellation 
“Son of Man.’’ The purely temporal, earthly and political 
conception of the Son of David, as it was held by most of his 
contemporaries, had to be rejected by the Saviour. In fact, 
in order to prevent an absolutely wrong idea of his Messiah- 
ship, and not to become a traitor to his own person and cause, 
Jesus saw himself compelled to renounce, in part, even the 
formal title “ Son of David,’’ based though it was on the Old 
Testament. 

God had from the beginning announced the Messianic 
salvation as a dominion and a kingdom, and, correspondingly, 
the Messiah asa ruler and king. This was the happiest figure 
of speech that he could have chosen, and it also corresponded 
perfectly to reality, in so far as it was conceived as spiritual, 
not material and earthly. In order to make it still more 
accessible, comprehensible and popular to the chosen people, 
he announced the Redeemer as the King of Israel, and a king 
from the most brilliant dynastic family—that of David—who 
should rule for ever and bring an exuberance of blessings to 
both land and people. Although these promises appear, for 
the most part, in the garb of highly coloured temporal power 
and splendour, yet they were evidently intended to be merely, 
or at least chiefly, the figurative shell and external form of 
the spiritual blessings and benefits of the Messianic age. 
Even in those passages of the Old Testament, in which the 
Messianic ideals assume the most intense national and 
material colours, the Son of David still always appears as 
a worker of miracles, a priest and teacher of truth and 
righteousness, equipped with the choicest spiritual gifts of 
God, and sent for the salvation and prosperity of all nations. 

Unmistakably, however, the increasing tendency of the 
Israelites to interpret the Messianic kingdom and its Prince, 
the Son of David, more and more in a national and political 
sense is revealed in the Old Testament; and when Jesus 
appeared men understood by the ‘* Son of David,” as we have 
seen, for the most part, only a national hero of the Jewish 
race. Judaism had taken the shell and the form for the 
essence and content of the Messianic prophecy. 

Hence Jesus was obliged to shatter the shell, in order to 
preserve the real, intrinsic substance of his Messianic person 
and mission. He only suffered men to call him the Son of 
David, and caused the figure of the Son of David to retire 


Content ot Cbhrist’s Messianic Consciousness 183 


behind that of the Son of Man; in fact, to disappear almost 
entirely. 

It is true he is announced in advance by the angel as the 
“Son of the Most High, to whom the Lord God will give the 
throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house 
of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end”’ 
(Luke i, 32). Yet there follows immediately the thoroughly 
spiritual interpretation of this supremacy: ‘‘ Thou shalt call 
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins ’”’ 
(Matt. i, 21). It is also true that the descent of Jesus from the 
house of David is continually emphasized (Matt. i, 1-6; Luke 
1, 27, 32, 69; il, 4). For an abandonment of this lineage 
would have been, not only a denial of the historical fact, but 
would also have been equivalent to the abandonment of his 
Messiahship, since the Messiah must come from the house of 
David (John vii, 42). Also, when the multitudes greet him as 
the Son of David (Matt. xxi, 9, 15; Mark xi, 10), he may not 
refuse the ovation without denying his Messianic claims. And 
even when the blind and distressed implore him, as the Son of 
David, for help (Matt. ix, 27; xv, 22, 30), he heals and helps 
them, not only from the infinite tenderness of his heart, but 
because the Messiah, according to the prophet, was to prove 
himself a worker of miracles (Isa. xxix, 18; xxxv, 2; lxi, 1). 

Yet he decidedly opposes the pharisaical supposition that the 
Messiah, by nature, is only David’s natural descendant, and 
in his vocation only a successor to David in a worldly kingdom 
(Matt. xxii, 42 and parallels), and he never once in his whole 
life calls himself the Son of David, in order not to recognize 
the distorted rabbinical portrait of the Messiah as correct. 

Moreover, the glorious title “Son of David’’ was less 
suitable to the Saviour also because he claimed to be here on 
earth, before all else, the “ Servant of God,’’ the Redeemer and 
the Saviour of sinners, in the literal meaning of those w rds. 

Before he could enter upon his royal supremacy over the 
kingdom of God, he must first bring it into the world and 
again enrol individuals as well as humanity as a whole in 
that kingdom, which, through sin, had been destroyed. First, 
Mediator and Founder of the kingdom, then its King. In 
this way, then, Jesus claims to be merely the Mediator, Saviour 
and Redeemer. As the Hellenic world conferred these titles 
on its victorious hero-kings who brought to it political 
freedom, so does Jesus also claim for himself the names of 
‘“Saviour’’ and ‘‘Redeemer.’’ He translates for himself the 
word Messiah by the other title, “Saviour of the world” 
(John iv, 25, 42). But for him it is a case of spiritual redemp- 
tion from sin and guilt. Of him the angel had said: “ Thou 
shalt call his name Jesus (Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer), for 
he shall save his people from their sins’’ (Matt. i, 21). Now, 
Jesus himself confirms this interpretation of his name, and 


184 Christ and the Critics 


thereby outlines the principal programme of his Messianic 
activity as that of redeeming people from their sins: “ The 
Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost ”’ 
(Luke xix, 10; Matt. xviii, 11). 

No one who has read the Gospels will be able to doubt that 
fighting against the sin of guilty man, and bringing him back 
to God, formed the one great occupation of the life of Jesus. 
Not only was his religious activity concentrated in this, but 
even the physical benefits which he conferred and the miracles 
he wrought had always that one aim of redemption from sin 
and its forgiveness. He heals the paralytic at the Pool of 
Bethsaida, and admonishes him: ‘‘ Behold, thou art made 
whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee” 
(John v, 14). He frees the woman taken in adultery from the 
hands of her pharisaical accusers, and says: ‘‘ Go and sin no 
more’’ (John vili, 11). He takes the sinful woman in the - 
house of Simon under his protection, gives to her the com- 
forting assurance, “ Thy sins are forgiven thee,’’ and remarks 
to the astonished Pharisees: ‘‘ Many sins are forgiven her, 
because she hath loved much” (Luke vii, 47). And when the 
Pharisees regard this as an intrusion into the domain of God’s 
power, and, accordingly, as an act of blasphemy, Jesus asserts 
and proves by the miracle that follows that “ the Son of Man 
hath power on earth to forgive sins’’ (Mark ii, 1-13). Ina 
word, the Saviour’s activity aims practically ever and always 
at effecting through his mediation the forgiveness of sins and 
at dispensing it himself. 

But also, and above all, it aims at earning and meriting the 
remission of sins for men. We know that the mediator, in 
the book of Isaias, is described as the Servant of God, who 
takes upon himself the sickness and sin of the people, and 
atones for them by his vicarious suffering. The Gospel applies 
this prophecy concerning the Servant of God to Jesus, and 
this is done in an especially remarkable way in one passage of 
the first Gospel (Matt. viii, 17). It is said there that the 
miracles of healing which Jesus worked on men were done for 
the purpose of fulfilling the words of Isaias: ‘‘ Surely he hath 
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.’’ With profound 
truth the whole life of Jesus is thereby applied to the central 
Messianic thought—that of vicarious atonement and redemp- 
tion from sin and its consequences. 

Nevertheless, the suffering and death of Jesus remain the 
veal act of redemption. We have already seen that Jesus 
looks upon his Messianic vocation, above all, in the light of 
his suffering, death, and subsequent resurrection. Even his 
teaching and all the rest of his Messianic announcements and 
activities pale before the stupendous fact of his suffering. At 
the same time he declared continually that only thus can the 
Old Testament prophecy be fulfilled, according to which the 
Messiah must suffer and die, and in this way enter into his 


Content of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 185 


glory (Luke xviii, 31; xxiv, 26; Matt. xvi, 21). He will thus 
atone for the sins of mankind and redeem humanity through 
his vicarious suffering as the Servant of God in the sense of 
the Psalms and of the writings of the prophet Isaias. 

Still more emphatically does he state this purpose of his 
Messianic vocation in the words of John’s Gospel : ‘‘ As Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be 
lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, 
but may have life everlasting. For God so loved the world 
as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God 
sent not his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the 
world may be saved by him. . . . I am the good shepherd. 
The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep’’ (John 
Rie TA-17 ; xX, 112): 

The answer which, according to the synoptic Gospels, he 
gave to the sons of Zebedee is exactly similar: “ The Son of 
Man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and 
to give his life a redemption for many’’ (Matt. xx, 28). 

With this great utterance in regard to his plan, into which 
he compresses, at the commencement of the Passion Week, 
the whole doctrine of redemption, are connected those other 
words spoken on the night immediately before his death. At 
the Last Supper he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and 
gave it to his disciples, saying: “‘ This is my body, which is 
given for you’’ (Luke xxii, 19). Likewise he took the cup, 
after the meal, and said: ‘‘ This is my blood of the new 
testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of 
sins”? (Matt. xxvi, 28). There is no need of explanation, 
and still less of proof, that Jesus himself, by these words, 
represented his death as an atonement for the sins of mankind 
and a redemption from sin. 

It is, however, also just as certain that modern liberal 
theology has no use for an atoning, sin-destroying Messiah. 
Not only because it regards the Saviour as a mere man, who 
is not in the least capable of such an atoning act, but, above 
all, because it cannot concede to the man Jesus a real Mes- 
Sianic vocation, on account of its preliminary denial of a 
supernatural revelation. It therefore sought, first of all, to 
ignore entirely the Johannine words of Jesus and to brand- 
mark the already quoted synoptical utterances about his aton- 
ing work and death as later interpolations into the Gospels, or 
as subsequent partial refashionings of the Gospel text. But 
no grounds are to be found for the critical rejection of these 


1 Thus Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Retche Gottes, 197-201 
(1900); H. G. Hollmann, Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu nach seinen 
etgenen Aussagen auf Grund der synoptischen Evangelien, 142-148 
(1901); Loisy, Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 181 (1907). Previously 
Loisy still maintained the genuineness of the passages of the synoptics 
on this subject. but altered his views in union with Andersen, Das 
Abendmahl in den zwei ersten Jahrhunderten nach Christus (1902). 


186 Christ and the Critics 


synoptic passages. The Leipzig professor Ludwig Ihmels 
justly remarks! that the whole reason for it lies in the fact 
that these passages do not harmonize with the portrait of 
Christ which the critics have fashioned. Their genuineness 
is also recognized almost universally by the leaders of liberal 
criticism,” and finally it is readily adopted by all critics, pro- 
vided, on the other hand, that we consent to let the passages 
in question pass for interpolations from the Pauline theology. 

This only is the point that is seriously contested. Paul 
continually announces in new ways and with the greatest 
emphasis the forgiveness of sins and the removal of sins 
through the death of Christ. That is the principal theme of 
his Gospel, ‘“‘ that Christ died for our sins’? (1 Cor. xv, 3); 
that ‘‘ Christ died and.rose again, that he might be Lord both 
of the dead and of the living”’ (Rom. xiv, 9); that ‘‘ Christ 
died for all, that they also who live may not now live to them- 
selves, but unto him who died for them and rose again” 
(2 Cor. v, 15); that ‘‘ Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 
of the law, being made a curse for us” (Gal. iii, 13); that 
‘* there is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 
who gave himself a redemption for all” (1 Tim. ii, 5, 6 
Harnack says: ‘*‘ The death on the cross was of the greatest 
importance to all Christians, but for Paul it was simply the 
act and the work of Christ. ... His preaching was the 
proclamation of the redemption effected by the cross and the 
resurrection. This furnished him with such an inexhaustible 
amount of consolation and exhortation that everything else in 
comparison sank into insignificance.” 

In this all are agreed, and the fact is evident in all the 
writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Opinions begin to 
differ when the question arises as to the relation of the 
Pauline doctrine of redemption to.the doctrine found in the 
Gospels and the writings of the Church. While all the New 
Testament texts and all the subsequent Christian centuries 
give us to understand that St Paul brought into a fully 
and universally developed system the doctrine of redemption, 
given in its germ and foundation by Jesus himself, and pro- 
claimed far and wide by the first disciples, the modern critics 
(according to whom the Messianic work of Jesus is reduced to 
the eschatological announcement of the kingdom) tell us that 
Paul is the inventor and creator of the doctrine of the atoning 
and redemptive death of Jesus. It is claimed that it is owing 
to his preaching, his writings and his powerful influence that 
in so short a time the whole primitive Church conformed to 
the new dogma of Christ’s redemptive work. Soon, it is said, 


1 Wer war Jesus? 57 (Leipzig, 1908). See also K. Miller, Unser Herr, 
31-33 (Berlin, 1906). 
2 Harnack, Wesen des Christentums, 101; O. Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, 
355 (1901); Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Matthai, 122 (1904). 
8 Harnack, Ueber die Glaubwirdigkett der evan gelischen Geschichte, 


in Christliche Welt, 319 (1905). 


Content of Christ’s Messtanic Consctousness 187 


he succeeded in bringing the whole Christian doctrinal system 
into harmony with this theory of redemption, and even the 
first three Evangelists had been no longer able to resist this 
impressive thesis of Paul. They took, we are told, the idea 
of the atoning death of Jesus from the Pauline Epistles, which 
were already in their possession, and in particular they bor- 
rowed from the first Epistle to the Corinthians the decisive 
words uttered at the Last Supper. In this sense Johannes 
Weiss,’ Hans Heinrich Wendt,? Georg Hollman,* Paul 
Wernle,* Bolliger,® Hausrath,® and other Protestant investi- 
gators have lately expressed themselves, and Loisy’ under- 
took to proclaim their hypothesis as dogma, in the name of 
criticism. 

And the reasons for this? We may well be astonished to 
hear them: ‘‘ From all appearances the text of Mark concern- 
ing the redemption of many through the death of Christ (Mark 
x, 45) must have been inspired by Paul, and it seems as if this 
Evangelist’s report of the Last Supper had been enriched by 
Paul with the idea of redemption; Jesus seems to have 
presented the chalice and the bread with reference to his 
approaching death and the future reunion with his own in the 
kingdom of God, without, however, setting forth the atoning 
character and redemptive significance of his death. The words 
of Jesus, as given by Luke (xxii, 19), which refer to his aton- 
ing death, appear to have been introduced subsequently from 
the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xi, 24). Mark’s 
representation of the Last Supper (xiv, 22, etc.) appears to be 
based on a narration, similar to that of Luke, only what he 
says of the ‘ blood of the new testament’ must have been 
introduced in accordance with the doctrine of Paul. The 
second Gospel, so influenced by the editing given it by Paul, 
must then, in its turn, have influenced the first Gospel of 
Matthew. Originally a shorter account of the scene of the 
Last Supper had, therefore, preceded the synoptic represen- 
tation of it, in which, it is true, the thought of Christ’s 
approaching death was present, but not the Pauline features 

of the atoning character of that death.”® We can hardly 
believe our eyes in beholding this artificial construction 
Mienistory. “It appears... . ..it should be. .°. . it would 


1 Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, p. 197 ff. 

2 Die Lehre Jesu, 505 (Gottingen, 1901). 

3 Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu nach seinen etgenen Aussagen auf 
Grund der synoptischen Evangelien (Tiibingen, 1901). 

4 Die Anfange unserer Religion, 79 (1904). 

“ea Messiasgeheimniss bet Markus, 98-132 (Schweiz. theol. Zeitsch., 
109 

pee und die neutestamentalichen Schriftsteller, i, 300, 308 (Berlin, 
1a08) 

’ DEvangile et PEglise, 69-73 (1902); Autour dun petit livre, 122, 
237 (Paris, 1903); Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 96, 100, 116, 181 (1907) : 
li, P. 540 (1908). 

8 L’Evangile et PE glise, 72; Autour dun petit livre, 237. 


188 Christ and the Critics 


be Waiti must be ou vit could ‘bess ele ee 
And from this is drawn the conclusion that the passages of the 
synoptists bearing on this point do not, therefore, belong to 
the Gospel of the Saviour, but to the theology of Paul! A 
more groundless criticism of the Gospels can scarcely be 
imagined. 

A closer comparison of the report of the Last Supper given 
by Paul (1 Cor. xi, 24), on the one hand, with the accounts 
given by the synoptists, on the other, in spite of the great and 
essential similarity of all these reports, reveal differences of 
such a nature that the hypothesis of the Evangelists having 
borrowed from the Epistle to the Corinthians is excluded. 
This is especially true in regard to the atoning character of 
the death of Jesus. Luke, the “ Paulist’’ among the synop- 
tists, omits, in describing the presentation of the chalice, the 
words, ‘‘ This do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the com- 
memoration of me ’—words which are found in the report by 
Paul; instead of them the Evangelist introduces the words : 
My blood, ‘‘ which is shed for you” (Luke xxii, 20), a conclu- 
sion which is not found in Paul. Mark and Matthew, on their 
part, give expression to the idea of atonement at the presenta- 
tion of the chalice, but not at the offering of the bread, while 
in Paul we observe the exact opposite. According to these 
two synoptists, Jesus adds to this the statement that his blood 
will . . . be shed “ for many,’’ while the Pauline report of 
the Last Supper does not contain these words. The second 
synoptic principal passage, according to which Jesus “‘ gives 
his life a redemption for many,” has no parallel in Paul. To 
be sure, 1 Tim. ii, 6 is very similar, ‘‘ Who gave himself a 
redemption,’’ yet there follow the additional words “ for all,”’ 
instead of the synoptic formula, ‘‘ for many.” Certainly 
both expressions are substantially the same, but the difference 
in form excludes borrowing on the part of the Evangelists, 
especially if we reflect that the synoptic passage stands in 
the midst of the description of an episode which in Paul 
is wanting. In view of this context, the synoptists could not 
have been borrowers, and Paul only could have been so, if 
there were any borrowers at all. Hence the passages in the 
Gospels which contain express statements about redemption 
through Christ do not find their origin in the Pauline Epistles. 

Moreover, the doctrine of redemption in itself cannot have 
Originated first from Paul and through him have been trans- 
mitted to the synoptic Gospels. Our opponents could support 
this assertion, at most, by the fact that the synoptic doctrine 
of redemption does not differ essentially from the Pauline 
doctrine. From this harmony they+then unhesitatingly draw 
the conclusion that the synoptists do not transmit to us the 
views of the Saviour, but the theory of Paul. Remarkable! 
If the Pauline idea of atonement were not to be found in the 


Content of Cbrist’s Messianic Consctousness 189 


writings of the Evangelists, then they would doubtless say : 
“You see that Paul must have imputed this idea to the 
Saviour, otherwise we should find it also in the Gospels.’’ 
But since it does form a part of the Gospels also, they say : 
“You see that the Evangelists ascribe these views to the 
Saviour in order to please Paul.’’ 

Evidently there is only one correct conclusion to be drawn 
from the agreement of the Gospel and Pauline accounts—that 
both report the same thing in accordance with two different 
but concurrent sources of information, which can have had 
their origin only in the reports of the first disciples, and there- 
fore go back to the utterances of Jesus himself. Willingly or 
unwillingly, almost all the critics now acknowledge this to be 
the case. 

Moreover, we should arrive at a similar result even if the 
doctrine of redemption were found only in Paul, and were not 
at all recorded by the Evangelists, or only in connection with 
Paul. For it is certain that “in the preaching of Jesus 
Christ . . . no differences existed between Paul and the early 
Apostles. We may be certain, therefore, that what Paul 
actually reports of Christ is nearly as reliable and valuable 
as if the disciples of Jesus had themselves related it in 
person. . . . A controversy over these facts never occurred 
among the Apostles.’’? 

This fundamental view of Harnack about the Pauline 
tradition of Christ is most clearly demonstrated in the ques- 
tion that here concerns us. Paul does not bring out the 
doctrine of the redemptive death of Jesus as his own view, 
which is for the first time struggling for recognition in the 
apostolic Church. Rather does he everywhere take it for 
granted that it 1s familiarly known to all the churches to which 
he writes, and forms a fundamental part of apostolic preach- 
ing. He expressly says: “I delivered unto you first of all 
which I also received; how that Christ died for our sins ’”’ 
(1 Cor. xv, 3). This central doctrinal point of the Pauline 
Gospel existed, therefore, before he wrote. The first 
witnesses for Christ all preached it both before and contem- 
poraneously with the Apostle to the Gentiles. It belonged to 
the treasure of saving truth, held by the oldest Christian 
generation. 

1 See Jiilicher, Zur Geschichte der Abendmahlfeiter in der altesten 
Kirche (1892); A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, 64 (1894); E. Haupt, 
Ueber die urstriingliche Form und Bedeutung der Abendmahisworte 
(1896); F. Schultzen, Das Abendmahl im N. T,. (1896); R. A. Hoff- 
mann, Die Abendmahisgedanken Jesu Christi (1896); P. Lobstein, La 
doctrine de la sainte céne (1899); W. Schmiedel, Dze neuesten Ansich- 
ten tiber den Ursprung des Abendmahls, Protestantische Monatshejte 
(1899); J. Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Matthai, 122-126 (1904); Das 
Evangelium Luca, 121 (1904). 


2 Harnack, Ueber die Glaubwirdigkett der evangelischen Geschichte, 
Christliche Welt, 319 (1905). 


190 Christ and the Critics 


These facts are asserted, not only by the more orthodox 
critics such as Karl Miller,! Paul Feine? and Julius Kaftan,° 
but also Wilhelm Wrede* and Johannes Weiss,°® who try to 
create artificially an antagonism between Christ and Paul, 
but are unable to produce evidence that Paul’s doctrine of 
redemption did not exist essentially in the first Christian com- 
munity. In fact, Adolf Jilicher is obliged to recognize the 
fact that Paul “ has the support of the original Christian com- 
munity in his teaching about Christ and the doctrines of satis- 
faction and redemption.’’ Accordingly “the cleft between 
Paul and ante-pauline Christianity has diminished remark- 
ably,’’ and “we see sometimes Jesus, sometimes the first 
Apostles, hold out the hand to him over the graves.’’® 

A glance into the non-pauline writings of the New Testa- 
ment confirms this statement. ‘‘ The blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Johni, 7). ‘‘ You are 
redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
unspotted and undefiled’’ (1 Pet. i, 19). Thus and similarly 
do the writings of the first disciples speak to us, and what we 
know in general of the first preaching of the Gospel from the 
Acts of the Apostles amounts almost entirely to this—that 
in Christ alone is salvation, deliverance, redemption and for- 
giveness of sins. Again, Harnack cannot but acknowledge 
that “the confession of the Christian Church is that in none 
other is there salvation, and that no other name is given to 
mankind by which we can be saved, than the name of Jesus 
Christ. With this confession it began; for this confession its 
martyrs died; and from this confession it still derives its 
strength to-day, as it did 1,800 years ago. It connects with 
this Person the whole substance of religion, life in God, the 
forgiveness of sin and consolation in suffering.’’” And else- 
where : ‘“‘ That these two doctrines | death and resurrection for 
our sins| were for the primitive Church the principal dogmas, 
no one has yet doubted; even Strauss has not denied it, and 
the great critic, Ferdinand Christian Baur, has recognized 
that the oldest form of Christendom was built up from a 
confession of faith in them.’’® Christendom has never known 
any other Gospel. 

Whoever departs from it, puts himself at once outside 
Christianity. But whoever asserts that this Gospel was the 
work of Paul presupposes something impossible to have 
really happened—namely, that at once, only a few years after 


lL Unser flerr, aait. 

Paulus als Theologe, 76-78 (Berlin, 1906). 

Jesus und Paulus (Tiibingen, 1906). 

Paulus, 2nd ed., 96 (Ttibingen, 1907). 

Paulus und Jesus, 5, 51 (Berlin, 1900). 

Paulus und Jesus, 34 (Tibingen, 1907). 

Das Christentum und die Geschichte, 5th ed., 3 (Leipzig, 1904). 
Harnack, Wesen des Christentums, 98. 


12 cl Pe WwW PS 


oo 


Content of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 191 


the death of Jesus, the Gospel of the Saviour was placed 
upon an entirely different and essentially and knowingly in- 
correct foundation, with the common, unanimous consent of 
the first disciples, and, indeed, by means of a man who did 
not belong to the circle of the disciples, but who, on the 
contrary, humbly confessed himself to be a novice, and was 
universally known as such. A criticism which must con- 
descend to such a monstrous alternative is thereby simply 
annihilated. It proves more clearly than all orthodox state- 
ments that the redemptive death and the redemptive doctrine 
belong to the innermost core of the Messianic preaching of 
Jesus. 1b -catigged 
Let us now sum up the results which we have gained. 
First of all, it has been shown to us that the Messianic views 
of Jesus were wholly foreign to the Judaistic conception of 
the Messiah, entertained by his contemporaries. He had, in 
common with the rabbinical and apocalyptical theology, only 
the thought of the Parousia—the view of his return at the end 
of the world. He rejected in the most decided manner the 
national-political conception of the Messiah in every form, 
and with it repudiated also in principle the only thing which 
apparently still united him with the Judaism of his time—the 
doctrine of the Parousia, conceived by it as something equally 

national and political. 

It is easy to see, therefore, that the more obstinately his 
people adhered to the late Jewish Messianic expectations, 
which were so fundamentally different from those of the Old 
Testament, the more incomprehensible did Jesus as the 
Messiah remain to them. The Judaism of the Synagogue 
could acknowledge as the Messiah only a thorough-going 
Rabbi, whose words, works, conduct and interpretation of 
the truth adhered strictly to the narrow Talmudic system of 
ordinances, and whose kingdom was a world power with a 
purely Jewish provincial policy. The Saviour came, however, 
relying neither on official rabbinism nor on an equally narrow 
Jewish eschatology, but on the divinely laid foundation of the 
Old Testament, and repudiating the erroneous ideas of the 
Messiah which the Jewish narrow-mindedness of later years 
thought that it found in the Old Testament. 

Nothing is more evident from the Messianic utterances of 
Jesus than his consciousness of the fact that he is upholding 
and fulfilling in every respect the Old Testament notion of the 
Messiah. Whenever he alludes to his “ having come’’ or 
“having been sent,’’ and however he may express himself 
concerning his Messianic beginning, and whether he speaks 
of his entry into the world, his teaching, his miracles, his 
suffering, his death, or his resurrection, he always remains 
conscious that he is fulfilling the prophecies and announce- 
ments of the Messiah, given in the Old Testament; that 


1g2 Christ and the Critics 


the whole Scripture must be fulfilled in him; and also that not 
a word had been spoken of the Messiah by Moses and the 
Prophets which was not to be realized in him. 

If we compare the Messianic elements of the Old Testament 
which we have disclosed with the Gospel’s actual Messianic 
confessions and recorded events, the essential unity of the 
Messianic conceptions, found in the Old Testament and the 
Gospel, becomes at once evident. In both we find the Son of 
David, the Son of Man, the suffering Servant of God, the 
Founder and King of the kingdom of God in this world and 
the next.! Hence Jesus is able continually to appeal to the 
Old Testament in proof of his Messiahship: “ Search the 
Scriptures; and the same are they which give testimony of 
me’’ (John v, 39). With such and similar words he seeks to 
turn the Jews, who are offended at his Messianic activity 
(John v, 9-4%), from their rabbinical pedantry in regard to the 
Law to the real Messianic truth of Old Testament revelation. 

Yet the Messianic idea of Jesus is not identical with that of 
the Old Testament. He interprets prophecy concerning him- 
self quite independently. It is undeniable that, together with 
the intellectual, religious, universal and supernatural upper 
current of Messianic prophecy, there flows also through the 
Olid Testament an adjacent current, which is very natural, 
earthly and chauvinistically national. It is true subtle 
intellects and stout hearts account for this by saying that 
the latter is only the covering and symbol of the former. 
But it was Jesus who first freed the Messianic idea entirely 
from the bonds of all that was national, earthly and secular, 
and with masterly decisiveness declared that every other con- 
ception of the prophecy and expectation of the Messiah was 
absolutely erroneous. This we have sufficiently proved. 

Jesus also harmonizes the Old Testament Messianic notion. 


It was certainly no unimportant and no easily comprehensible — 


circumstance that all the Messianic prophecies refer to one 
and the same person, and can find their fulfilment only in 
that person. Hence the songs of Isaias about the ‘‘ Servant 
of God’’ were never, until the time of Jesus, referred to the 
Messiah, so far, at least, as we can judge from the Jewish 
writings still existing. To identify the Son of Man in Daniel 
with the Son of David, and the kingdom of God, the construc- 
tion of which was so difficult, with the glorious and perfected 
kingdom, appeared possible, indeed, only to a very few. But 
Jesus unites all this in genuine harmony in his own person and 
work. He is the thoroughly supernatural, pre-existing Son of 


Man in Daniel, but at the same time the truly incarnate Son — 


of Man, human in every particular. Both as the Son of Man 
and Son of David he will enter upon his Messianic power and 


1 Of Emmanuel and Jesus the Son of God we shall have something to 
say subsequently. 


ee | 


Content of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 193 


supremacy, but only after he shall have preached, suffered and 
submitted to death for the sins of humanity as the humble 
Servant of God. By his teaching he enlists disciples for the 
kingdom of God, by his death he makes possible the entry 
into that kingdom, and in his resurrection and glory he takes 
possession of it. Thus in him one prophecy after another 
falls into line in the most perfect harmony, and the whole 
Messianic conception of the Old Testament becomes one con- 
tinuous prophecy ; and this does not form a mere theory with 
sO many paragraphs, but is a living organism, incorporated 
in the one living person of Jesus Christ himself. 

Jesus has thereby also idealized the Old Testament idea of 
the Messiah. Nowhere does he try merely to copy prophecy 
literally. On every occasion he fulfils the prediction in a 
sublime and masterful way, without letting himself be always 
limited by the same restrictions. He shows himself to be the 
Lord of the Old as well as of the New Testament, saying: 
“Tt was said by them of old time. ... But J say unto 
you...’ That is a declaration of majesty not to be mis- 
taken. And he acted accordingly. What the men of old 
neither conjectured nor conceived, he elevated till it became 
the chief commandment of his kingdom of God—namely, 
Love. What the ancients did not regard as feasible, he made 
at once a fact—the proclamation of a Gospel of grace in 
contrast to the law of fear. What men, in any case, had 
formerly expected only as a secondary matter, he put in the 
foreground of his Messianic teaching and activity—the re- 
demption from sin and guilt through the vicarious suffering 
and death of the Messiah. The Old Testament prophecies 
of the Messiah may have appeared before the coming of 
Christ as a powerful and brilliant light, but through their 
fulfilment in Christ this light shone forth with such supernal 
splendour that it appeared less as an illuminating touch than 
as a shadow of Jesus thrown back from Christ upon the Old 
Testament. 

This is the specifically Christian idea of the vocation, work 
and person of Jesus the Messiah, with the exception that the 
divinity of Jesus has not yet been brought into consideration. 
It is the fulfilment and the blessed and glorious revelation of 
the Old Testament Messianic conception, and at the same time 
the correction and most positive rejection of the Judaistic 
conception, as it was held by most of the contemporaries of 
Jesus, whether of the rabbinical or apocalyptic stamp. The 
modern idea of the Messiah, advanced by the latest higher 
criticism, has nothing to do with it. To this school of criticism 
Jesus is merely a successful impersonation of the Judaistic 
ideas of the Messiah prevailing in his time. According to 
this school, Jesus must have evolved either from the rabbinism 
of the Pharisees or from apocalyptic eschatology, and must 

I, 13 


194 Christ and the Critics 


have incorporated now one and now the other of these, en- 
hanced by his strongly individual and gifted personality. That 
is all. It is comprehensible, therefore, that the modern theory 
of evolution—for which no supernatural revelation whatso- 
ever exists, but only natural development—cannot possibly 
furnish any other solution of the Messianic problem, even 
though such a solution contradicts, as we have seen, the facts 
of history and in particular the testimony of Jesus to himself 
as the Messiah, 


CHAP DER ET 


ORIGIN OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUS- 
NESS OF CHRIST 


I.—ORIGIN OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST 
ACCORDING TO MODERN CRITICISM. 


HUS far we have demonstrated the fact that Jesus 

bore witness to himself as the Messiah during his 

whole public life in an ever-increasing and ever 

more emphatic revelation, and interpreted the 

essential character of his Messiahship also with 
a unique and thoroughly sublime self-reliance. 

But the more striking and remarkable these wonderful facts 
are, the louder and more forcibly do the critics ask: “‘ How 
came Jesus to regard himself as the Messiah? Whence did 
he derive the conviction that he was the Messiah in the 
sublime sense indicated? Where and how did his Messianic 
consciousness originate ?”’ 

Not only in the opinion of orthodox believers, but also in 
that of sceptics and unbelievers, this question forms ‘‘ an 
essential part of the inquiry into the essence of Christianity 
in general.”+ With the answer to this stands or falls either 
the Christian conception, or the modern critical conception, 
of the Person of Jesus. 

For believing Christians the answer to this question is a 
very simple one. They see in Jesus Christ the eternal Son of 
God, who was sent by the heavenly Father into the world, to 
redeem fallen humanity, as the Messiah. In this way the 
entire mystery of the origin of the Messianic consciousness of 
Jesus is solved. Jesus brought his Messianic vocation with 
him from heaven to earth. His Messianic consciousness, 
therefore, has its origin in his antecedent, pre-existent life. 
It forms the root and basis of the incarnation and the earthly 
life of Jesus, and is very far from having originated in this 
life and having been gradually developed here. 

Very different, however, is the opinion of the higher 
criticism, from the reltgious-historical and religious-psycho- 
logical point of view. Since it considers Christianity merely 
as the result of the natural evolution of humanity, and as a 
period of transition in the moral, intellectual and religious 
development of the human race, it also considers the Saviour 
Jesus Christ as only a member and a factor of this natural 
evolution. It sees in him a mere man, without any previous 


1 Ernst Kiithl, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, p. 86 f. (Berlin, 1907), 
195 


196 Christ and the Critics 


life in heaven or any divine nature—a man like all the rest of 
men. Only this man (whether in consequence of some fana- 
tical self-deception, or through divine interposition remains 
undecided) believed that he had an extraordinary Messianic 
life-task to perform, and actually did fulfil this life-task for 
the blessing of mankind. 

Yet modern criticism, in claiming this, is placed before the 
problem of how the consciousness of such a task and of such 
an absolutely unique and unheard-of vocation could arise in 
the man Jesus. Both the sceptical and half-sceptical schools 
of criticism are bound to solve this problem, because otherwise 
their whole conception of the Messiah and of the person and 
work of Jesus Christ remains entirely without foundation. If 
they do not succeed in giving to this a thoroughly satisfactory 
and complete explanation, that is the best and most convinc- 
ing proof that those schools of criticism have taken the wrong 
course in offering to the Christianity of all the centuries a 
thoroughly human conception of the nature and person of 
Jesus. 

It is clear from the outset that our opponents must explain 
the Messianic consciousness of the Saviour psychologically, as 
the result of a gradual evolution of the inner life of Jesus, and 
that they cannot possibly explain it in any other way, and 
ought not to attempt to do so. On the one hand, they wish to 
confine even the Messiah-Jesus within the limits of natural 
development and of the purely human view of history. On 
the other hand, they proceed from the conviction that Jesus 
really did not at first and from his own nature possess any 
Messianic consciousness, although this undeniably appeared 
in him at a later date. It revealed itself, therefore, midway 
between the early and the later periods of his life. And 
because this could not possibly have happened through a 
supernatural revelation and the gift of divine grace (for our 
opponents deny the possibility of these, on principle), the 
Messianic consciousness of Jesus must have evolved itself 
from his own natural experiences; that is, out of the incidents 
of his external life and out of his inner ethical qualities and 
condition of soul. It is on this standpoint, then, that the 
rationalistic and rationalizing school of inquiry concerning 
Jesus really places itself. 

Rationalism denies any objective Messianic vocation of 
Jesus, and accordingly supposes the Man of Nazareth to have 
worked himself more and more into the Messianic conscious- 
ness, grossly self-deceived, impelled by his deeply religious 
nature, urged on by his associates and his successes, and 
allured by his own imagination. 

The classical example of this “ psychological explanation ”’ 
of Christ’s Messianic consciousness is always Ernest Renan’s 
Vie de Jésus. The French romanticist regards the extra- 


‘ 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consctousness 197 


ordinarily perfect idea of God held by Jesus, and the spiritual 
union with God resulting from it, “as to a certain extent the 
potential germ of his whole power,’’* and as the point of 
departure for his later religious and Messianic development. 
In contrast to Judaism,” Jesus recognizes in God his Father, 
and feels himself united with him in such a constant and 
profound intimacy as can only unite a child with his father. 
“God does not speak with him as with a stranger; God is in 
him; he knows himself to be one with God, and he derives 
from his own heart what he says of his Father. He lives in 
the bosom of God by means of an uninterrupted revelation ; 
he sees him not, but he hears him. . . . He believes that he 
stands in immediate intercourse with God; he considers him- 
self to be the Son of God. . . . Not as if Jesus had come at 
once to this high opinion of himself. It is, however, probable 
that he thought from the very first that he stood in that rela- 
tion to God in which a son stands to his father.’’* 

This blessed conviction of his conscious filial relation to God 
forced him to convey to his fellow-men the same happiness. 
He taught them, accordingly, to recognize God as a Father, 
and to have intercourse with him as children and sons. That 
seemed to him to be the true kingdom of heaven prophesied 
by the Prophets—the ardently expected kingdom of God.° 
The founder of this ‘‘ true kingdom of God, the kingdom of the 
meek and humble, is the Jesus of the first days, those modest 
and unclouded days when the voice of his Father found a purer 
_ echo in his heart. At that time God really dwelt upon this 
earth, for some months at least, perhaps for a year.’’® 

Then came the unhappy change. Influenced by the preach- 
ing of John the Baptist, by the extravagant Messianic hopes 
of the class of people around him, and much more even by the 
evolution of his own ideas, Jesus substituted for the inherent 
kingdom of God, consisting of a sweet, childlike conscious- 
ness of God, an external, realistically and at the same time 
transcendentally conceived kingdom. An actual, theocratic 
kingdom was to be founded, and in order to make the found- 
ing of this possible the present sinful world was first to be 
transformed by a sudden catastrophe into one that would be 
supermundane and heavenly. A second and equally sudden 
catastrophe was then at once to complete the supremacy of 
God upon the new earth.” A radical revolution, which ex- 
tended itself even to nature, was henceforth the fundamental 
thought of Jesus.® 

That he himself was called to carry this revolution into 
effect he could not for a moment seriously doubt. Yet, as has 
been said, “the conviction that he was the Son of God, the 


; vee ade Jesus, 83. : ta, 531,54 ‘ ai 54. 
eA EEO S: dice ee fs 
7 td., 81-93. 8 id., 85. 


198 Christ and the Critics 


confidential agent of his Father and the executor of his 
Father’s will, was so deeply implanted in him, that it prob- 
ably had not developed gradually, but had had its origin in 
the very roots of his being.’’! If, however, he was called to 
complete the Messianic work of founding the kingdom of 
God, he was evidently also called to rule this future kingdom 
as the Messianic king. He was, therefore, in the full sense of 
the word, the Messiah.* ‘ Possessed by this idea, which 
dominated him ever more and more, from this time on, with a 
truly fatal calmness, he pursued the course which his astonish- 
ing genius and the extraordinary circumstances of his life had 
indicated,’’* everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings of the 
immediate coming of the kingdom of God and preparing men 
for it.4 With his unexampled enthusiasm he awaited every 
day the glorious dawn of the new age of the world.°® 

Yet he was soon to see that he had deceived himself in 
supposing that he could conjure up the kingdom of God 
triumphantly and without great difficulties. Besides a small 
community of believing disciples, there was also the great 
mass of the people, and, above all, the party of the Pharisees, 
which felt itself aggrieved by the fact that he set aside the 
representatives of Mosaism, forced the Law itself into the 
background, and dreamed of a Messianic kingdom, which 
stood in violent contrast to their politico-national ideas of the 
Messiah. And the more clear and profound the ideas of Jesus 
concerning the kingdom and its coming became, the more 
intense grew the opposition to the pharisaical Jews. These 
already assumed a threatening attitude, and it could be fore- 
seen that the issue would be an ominous and, indeed, a fatal 
one for the Nazarene. Thus Jesus familiarized himself first 
with the suggestion, and finally with the definite thought, 
that he could not, as the glorious Son of Man prophesied by 
Daniel, establish and rule the kingdom of God at once, but 
only after preliminary suffering and passing through death 
and the grave.® In reality, however, the idea of such a 
kingdom of God was buried with him with his death. ‘‘ This 
realistic view of the coming of God had been merely a cloud, 
a passing error.’’? 

This error, and consequently the Messianic consciousness of 
Jesus itself, is, it is claimed, really only explicable and excus- 
able when the psychological constitution of Jesus is taken into 
consideration. Jesus was an enthusiast, an eccentric, an 
exalté, an ecstatic, a visionary. 

“Carried away by an enthusiasm soaring to prodigious 
heights, and compelled to adopt every day a more ecstatic 
mode of preaching, Jesus was no longer free. . . . One was 
often tempted to believe that he was irrational. He suffered 
from feelings of anguish and spiritual distress. The impres- 

1 Vie de Jésus, 8e. 2 1d., 04. 3 td., 92. 4 id. , 

he sey ; 6 id., Baan wat ee A he 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness i199 


sive vision of the kingdom of God flickered constantly before 
his eyes and made him dizzy. . . . His unusually passionate 
temperament carried him at every moment beyond the bounds 
of human nature. His work was no longer a rational 
one. ... Sometimes he was hard and strange. His dis- 
ciples no longer understood him, and were seized with a 
certain feeling of fear in his presence. . .. At times they 
regarded him as a madman.’ “The madman in him 
bordered on the inspired man; only the madman has never 
had any success. Never until then had insanity succeeded in 
exercising, as Jesus exercised it, a decisive influence on the 
progress of humanity.’’? 

In this last confession lies Renan’s own condemnation of 
his hypothesis of the origin of the Messianic consciousness of 
Jesus. Quite apart from its being in contradiction to the facts 
of the Gospel, a psychology of Jesus must be false which 
stamps as a madman, or at least as a visionary simpleton, one 
“to whom everyone of us owes what is best in him;’’? “ who 
has created a movement, at the beginning of which a man of 
colossal dimensions must have stood;’’* ‘‘ who has united in 
himself all that is good and sublime in our nature;’’? “ who 
stands at the summit of human greatness ;’’® “ who is for ever 
unsurpassable, whatever the future may produce;’’’ and 
“whom all coming centuries will acclaim as the greatest of 
the children of men.’’® | 

From such a double-tongued, contradictory and senseless 
theory even the liberal-protestant school of critics turned with 
an emphatic gesture of disapproval. In France itself Edmund 
Stapfer, the dean of the Protestant theological faculty at 
Paris, wrote the following forcible sentences: “ Jesus pro- 
fessed to be the Messiah. That is proven; that is certain. 
How did he come to do this? Through insanity, or not? It 
seems to us that this is the only alternative that henceforth 
presents itself to distinguish believers from unbelievers.’’® 
“Renan has said: ‘ Blinded by his success Jesus regarded 
himself as the Messiah.’ He was rational at the beginning of 
his activity, but was no more so at its close, and his history, 
as Renan relates it, is, in spite of all the excuses which the 
latter brings forward for it, the history of the ever-increasing 
over-excitement of a man who began with the sober sense, 
clear vision and moral soundness of a beautiful and noble 
genius, but who ended with a morbid mental exaltation 
bordering on insanity. The word insanity has not been 
uttered by Renan, but the thought of it is stamped on every 

bere we) ésus, 226, 227. fet RR 3-7d., 202. 

4 4d., 319. 8 1d ,, 326. 6 7d., 320. 2b, 427, 

8 t7d., 327. The thorough refutation of the psychiatrical and the 


psychopathological criticism of Jesus follows in the second volume of 
this work. 


9 E. Stapfer, J/ésus-Christ avant son mintstére, and. ed., xi (Paris, 
1896). 


200 Christ and the Critics 


page. Yet the facts certainly contradict such an explana- 
tion.’’? 

Thus does Stapfer ally himself with the “ believers ’’; that 
is, by rejecting the harsh standpoint of the rationalists, he 
assumes that Jesus did not imagine that he was the Messiah, 
but that he was so in reality. Yet in this there is no mention 
of the supernatural Messiahship of faith, either by Stapfer or 
by any adherent of the liberal school. To them Jesus is 
merely a genius, richly endowed by nature, or, if one prefers, 
by natural providence, called to promote the evolution of 
humanity in a religious direction, precisely as Plato and 
Aristotle were called by God to promote scientific, and Michael 
Angelo and Goethe artistic, evolution. Accordingly, if Jesus, 
with all his greatness, was a mere man with a Messianic 
vocation, not exceeding the human standard, human powers 
and human nature, then his Messianic consciousness also must 
have been developed by degrees and psychologically. 

We see, then, that in reality the Man of Nazareth under- 
goes, at the hands of the liberal school, exactly the rational- 
istic treatment of Renan, with the sole difference that it 
endeavours to represent his Messianic evolution as being 
based on something objective, not as the phantasy of an 
overstrained mentality. Essentially the holders of the liberal 
theory of evolution have learned nothing since the time of 
Renan. It resembles in almost every particular that of the 
French “ decorative painter.”’ 

Stapfer, like Renan, denies that Jesus possessed at first a 
Messianic consciousness. It is true Jesus stood in an intimate 
moral connection with God, and this union was so profound 
and tender that God appeared to him as a Father and he knew 
himself to be ethically a Son of God.? On this account he felt 
himself impelled to accomplish something great for God, his 
Father, and to bring about for others also their adoption by 
God as children. Ever stronger and more emphatic became 
this question of his inmost heart : “ For what purpose am I in 
this world? What is my mission? What is the vocation of 
my life?’’ And parallel to this question was the other : “ Who 
will be the Messiah? When will he appear? What work will 
he accomplish?’’ Eighteen years of such reflections pass, and 
slowly but surely he comes to the steadfast conviction: ‘I 
myself am the Messiah.’’? The crisis takes place at his 
baptism. There he thinks he hears from above the voice of 
his Father, which gives the decisive, affirmative answer to 
his inward filial feeling and Messianic enthusiasm for God: 
‘Thou art my beloved Son. In thee am I well pleased.” 
Now his Messianic vocation had become a fact.4 


1 Jésus-Christ pendant son ministére, 2nd ed., 300 (Paris, 1897). 
2 Stapfer, Jésus-Christ avant son ministére, 89-91. 
10s, 02. Std tO. 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 201 


But how was he to interpret the Messianic vocation? He 
was still firmly rooted in the earthly and political ideas of the 
Messiah common to the Jews. The temptation, which ‘“ was 
not one separate and passing phenomenon, but extended 
itself over the whole period of the life of Jesus following the 
baptism,” freed him ‘‘ from the false ideas and all the in- 
correct political views regarding the Messiah, which he had 
shared with his entire people. He came out of the period of 
the temptation with the conviction that he must be a spiritual 
and moral Messiah . . . that he will establish his kingdom in 
the hearts of men and accomplish a purely religious work.’’} 
Finally, his persecution at the hands of the Pharisees familiar- 
ized him also more and more with the thought that he must 
suffer and die, and that only after this he would come in glory 
as the Messiah and find full recognition.? 

Loisy,? Réville* and some German critics of liberal tenden- 
cies reject, for the most part, this last-named development, 
asserting that Jesus conceived his Messianic vocation, in a 
spiritual sense, at once after the baptism, and that the idea of 
suffering also was not absent from his mind. Yet in the main 
they all agree with Renan and Stapfer. They suppose that 
the Messianic consciousness of Jesus is not to be regarded as 
having formed from the first a part of his nature, but as the 
result of a gradual evolution. The foundation for it had been 
laid in the first period of his life, through the consciousness 
of sonship, which then appeared in him; through the occur- 
rence at his baptism this became a positive certainty ; and the 
succeeding period of his public life, with its temptations and 
experiences, strengthened, confirmed and clarified the con- 
sciousness of his Messianic vocation. In regard to these main 
points, we find, with some slight variations, a substantial 
agreement in the views of Otto Pfleiderer,®> Willibald 
Beyschlag,® Adolf Harnack,? Johannes Weiss,* Hans 
Wendt,? Oskar MHoltzmann,!® Bernard Weiss,!! Paul 
Wernle,4?. Konrad Furrer,'® Adolf Julicher,44 P. W. 


aid, 102-476; 2 Jésus-Christ pendant son ministére, 222. 

8 PEvangile et PE glise, 55 (1902); Le LV Evangile, 233, 252 (1903); 
Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 165, 183-186, 192, 206, 212, 242 (1907). 

* fésus de Nazareth, it, 3, 13-20, ee 208 (Paris, 1897). 

5 Religionsphilosophie, 2nd ed., 186 ff. 

6 Das Leben Jesu, 215-255, 3rd a (1893). 

7 Das Wesen des Christentums, 86-89 (1900). 

8 Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 154-158 (1900). 

9 Die Lehre Jesu, 91-102, 2nd ed. (1901). 

10 Leben Jesu, 106-115 (1901). 

11 Das Leben Jesu, i, 271-328, 4th ed. (1902); Lehrbuch der biblischen 
Theologie des N. T., 61, 7th ed. (1903). 

12 Die Anfange unserer Religion, 27-38 (1904). 

13 Das Leben Jesu Christi, 51-55, 70, 81-83, 2nd ed. (1905). 

14 Die Religion Jesu u. die Anfange des Christentums, in Die Kultur 
der Gegenwart, No. 4, 55 (1906). 


202 Christ and the Critics 


Schmiedel,! Otto Schmiedel,? Wilhelm Weiss,*> Wilhelm 
Bousset* and P. W. Schmidt.° 

Wendt describes, perhaps most clearly, the evolution of 
the Messianic consciousness of Jesus as follows: “ We may 
assert, on the ground of the religious self-consciousness, in 
accordance with which Jesus later judged and acted, that he 
always felt himself a son in relation to God, so far as his 
consciousness went backward to his childhood. Certainly this 
filial feeling formed itself within him and grew broader and 
deeper only gradually ; but he did not work his way out from 
an original condition under the dispensation of the Law, 
characterized by a slavish spirit towards God, to reach, only 
at a later date, a condition under the dispensation of grace 
and free adoption. From the first he lived in the condition 
and consciousness of a child of God. . . . During the period 
of his public activity his view of the fatherhood of God, and 
his consciousness that he himself stood in a purely filial rela- 
tion to the heavenly Father, was the firm foundation of his 
certainty that now the kingdom of God was coming, and that 
he himself was the Messiah in this kingdom. In the period 


which preceded his public appearance, however, this intimate _ 


relation in which his knowledge of the fatherhood of God 
and his own life in a state of sonship to God stood to the 
establishment of the kingdom of God and to his Messiahship, 
must have been still hidden from him. . . . The knowledge 
that he himself was called by God to be the Messiah of the 
promised kingdom of salvation had not been completely pos- 
sessed by him for a long time previous to the commencement 
of his Messianic work. He became aware of this revelation 
which established his Messianic consciousness when he fol- 
lowed the call of John the Baptist to the Jewish people, to 
prepare, through penance, for the immediate coming of the © 
Messiah, and, as an evidence of such preparation, to be 
baptized in the Jordan. . . . At the moment when he under- 
went the baptism of John he received the revelation, which 
imparted to him his Messianic consciousness. The perception 
was then given him that the Spirit of God, whose bearer and 
representative the Messiah was to be, had been bestowed 
upon himself. . . . As the Son of God, in whom was first 
perfectly revealed the promised relation of salvation between 
God and humanity, he must be the Messiah, whose task it was 
to bring to the rest of mankind the knowledge and realization 
of this saving relation, and thus to bring about the establish- 
ment of the promised kingdom of God. The assurance of 
his Messiahship, thus suddenly and miraculously received, 


1 Protest. Monatshefte, 267 (1906). 

2 Die Hauptprobleme der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 96-99, 2nd ed. (1906). 
3 Jesus von Nazareth, go ff. (1906). & Jesus, 79 £., 87 f. {roar 

5 Die Geschichte [esu erzdhit, 49-52, 57-59, 114, 120-122, 126 (1909). 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consctousness 203 


was, however, followed by disturbing doubts. . . . And that 
which made such a conflict possible for him, and threatened to 
confuse him as to his Messianic vocation, was the number 
and variety in the Jewish conceptions of the Messiah, which 
until then had been kept hidden from him, and which he now 
recognized would not be realized if he himself should appear 
in that sense of the Messiahship and with the spiritual power 
revealed to him at the baptism. . . . The net benefit accru- 
ing to Jesus from his preliminary struggle with the tempta- 
tions, which were directed, immediately after the baptism, 
against his consciousness of his Messianic vocation, consisted 
in his having acquired for his own sure possession the sud- 
denly gained certainty of that Messianic vocation. Thereafter 
he was not subject to ever-new mental agitation, caused by 
inward scruples and doubts, whenever, in the practice of his 
Messianic calling, he encountered temptations originating in 
the prevalent Jewish conception of the Messiah or in the 
obstacles continually presented both by his disciples and by 
his enemies. Since he had at the start rejected this tempta- 
tion, not briefly and superficially, but, on the contrary, had 
overcome it quietly and thoroughly during a period of spiritual 
conflict lasting for weeks, he could take up his public work 
and teaching with wonderful clearness and consistency, and 
with an immovable certainty of his Messianic consciousness 
and of his conception of the kingdom of God.” 

From these statements it is evident that the liberal school 
is indeed willing to oppose to the merely imaginary Messianic 
consciousness of Jesus one that is founded upon facts, yet 
represents this, exactly as Renan does, as the result of his 
subjective, psychological evolution. It begins with a protest 
against rationalism, and ends with the final results of 
rationalism. 

The ltberal-conservative group of Protestant theologians 
recognizes in Jesus ‘‘the Son of Man and Son of God from 
heaven,’’ but does not recognize the real Son of God and his 
divinity, and raises “a most emphatic protest against all 
attempts of the liberal school to apply to Christ the thought 
of development found in the modern theory of evolution. . . 
The consciousness of Jesus that he was the Son of God and the 
Son of Man mocks at all attempts at a religious-historical 
explanation, and every theory of its evolution must be checked 
by it. If not, it should comprehend clearly that it must first 
destroy that consciousness of Jesus if it wishes to explain it 
in its way.”? We should hardly believe it possible to meet 
with such words as these at the conclusion of an investigation 
in which the liberal-conservative theologian of K6nigsberg, 
Ernst Kihl, represents the self-consciousness of Jesus, quite 


1 Wendt, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, I0I-102. 
2 Ernst Kiihl, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 86 (Berlin, 1907). 


204 Christ and the Critics 


in the sense of the liberal school of criticism, as the result 
of a gradual development. The filial consciousness of Jesus 
has, it is true, according to Kuhl “ its ultimate rootlets in the 
depths of his own being, which it outgrew organically by what 
might be called a natural, spiritual necessity.’’4 That is, 
however, all. Not even once is Jesus’ consciousness of son- 
ship made identical with his consciousness of his own nature. 
The latter is, rather, only the fostering soil in which the 
former grows. Hence ‘‘ we are never able to decide whether 
the filial consciousness of Jesus took possession of him 
through some intervention of God at a definite period of 
his former life suddenly, irresistibly and overpoweringly, or 
whether (which is for us psychologically more comprehensible) 
it came into being gradually, like a mature fruit, after long 
evolution. And if it did ripen thus in long evolution, did this 
development proceed quietly, continuously and harmoniously ? 
Or was it connected with severe spiritual struggles and inward 
conflicts? All these are questions for the answers to which 
no means of historical and psychological demonstration are 
available.’’? 

According to Kihl, we know only that the filial conscious- 
ness, ‘“‘ this inner feeling and condition of kinship which raised 
him above all other men and united him with God, was already 
a characteristic of Jesus when he came to his baptism.’’? In 
Kuhl’s opinion, also, it cannot be doubted that Jesus’ con- 
sciousness of being the Messiah originated in his consciousness 
of sonship, and, indeed, in consequence of his experience at 
his baptism. ‘“ Only this is certain—that the consciousness of 
his sonship took on the form of Messianic consciousness in 
consequence of the baptism.’’* His baptism must “surely be 
considered as the natal hour of his Messiahship, and at the 
same time also that of his Messianic consciousness.’’® 

‘*From the moment of his baptism Jesus was convinced of 
his Messianic vocation and of his call to found the Messianic 
kingdom.® The day and hour of the coming of the kingdom 
and of his final Messianic triumphs he patiently left to God, 
because, by reason of his consciousness of sonship, he 
acquiesced entirely in God’s will.” During his first Messianic 
work for his people, which was taken up and completed with 
enthusiasm, Jesus certainly never doubted that these triumphs 
would be, sooner or later, granted him by God. On this point 
even the hostility of the leading circles could not shake his— 
confidence, so long as he had the sympathies of the people on ~ 
his side. But when the great change in the people took place, 
when the flame of enthusiasm for him was extinguished . . . 
then he saw that the day and hour of the completion of the 
kingdom was to be postponed, and that all that the Prophets 

1 7id., 43. 2 id., 42. S20. AD, 4 4d., 40. 

5 id., 39. 6 id., 44-61. 7 42.,108, 


Origin of Cbrist’s Messianic Consciousness 205 


had written of the Son of Man, even all that Isaias (chapter 
liii) had written of the suffering Servant of God, would find its 
fulfilment in the Messiah; then he made the thought of suffer- 
ing a part of his self-consciousness, in voluntary submission 
to the divine will and in clear agreement with it. That was 
the really great, bold and heroic act of Jesus.’’* 

When Kuhl makes the thought of his coming suffering a 
development of Messianic consciousness, which came to Jesus 
only subsequently and, indeed, at a very late date, he goes 
beyond even most of the representatives of the liberal school 
which he attacks, and reverts directly to the rationalism of 
Strauss and Renan. 

Thus the immense labour, in which the criticism of the last 
two decades has wellnigh exhausted itself in trying to explain 
intelligibly the consciousness of Jesus by the theory of psycho- 
logical evolution, ends in a pitiful absurdity. It started out 
with indignation at Renan, who had dared to describe the 
Messianic consciousness of Jesus as the result of purely 
psychological development, and it closes, since it brings out 
the same assertions with various modifications, by saying 
that Jesus had by nature no Messianic consciousness; that 
the consciousness of sonship preceded the Messianic con- 
sciousness aS a preparation; that Jesus first acquired his 
Messianic consciousness at the time of the baptism and by 
means of it; and that this Messianic consciousness was 
evolved to completion during the subsequent period of his 
public life. 

But all this in substance the French rationalist had also 
said. Indeed, it will be shown that the modern critics them- 
selves do not escape the absurd consequence resulting from 
declaring Jesus, in the same breath, to have been the most 
perfect flower of human intelligence, yet at the same time a 
visionary suffering from insane phantasies. ‘This criticism of 
the modern evolutionary theory, pronounced upon itself, is 
the sharpest subjective criticism imaginable. Its advocates 
have certainly given themselves sincere and almost inconceiv- 
able effort to prove the psychologically false portrait of Jesus 
which Renan merely sketched, as an unsurpassable artist, to 
be a real, scientific and historic picture. They have not suc- 
ceeded in the attempt. The “ psychological’’ development- 
portrait of Jesus remains always an artificial construction. A 
serious and unprejudiced examination of the separate positions 
held by our opponents will fully convince us of this. Let us 
begin with the alleged evolution of the Messianic conscious- 
ness of Jesus during his public life. 


1 id., 61-62. 


206 Christ and the Critics 


IIl.—EwvoLuTION OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST 
DURING HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 


We are acquainted with our opponents’ views about the 
evolution of the Messianic consciousness. It is, however, 
necessary to examine still more closely their lines of thought 
and their “ proofs ’’ for the assertions made by them, in order 
to judge of them with certainty. The transformation in the 
Messianic ideas of Jesus begins, according to the modern 
critics, after the episode of the baptism. Jesus, they say, left 
the scene of the baptism with the firm consciousness that he 
had been chosen for the Messiah. Our opponents of all shades 
of opinion are, in fact, unanimous in thinking that “ Jesus, 
when he made his public appearance, had already fully made 
up his mind both as to himself and his mission.’’* “ No 
competent judge of the matter who has respect for tradition 
will, therefore, dare to cast a doubt upon the constant Mes- 
sianic consciousness of Jesus after his baptism.’’? 

We are assured, however, on the other hand, with equal 
positiveness, that Jesus, immediately after his baptism, was 
not yet sure “of the nature of his Messiahship’’® or of the 
precise task which he, as the Messiah, had to perform, or of 
the manner of his Messianic activity. “‘ Even if his experience 
at his baptism did settle the great and vital question of his 
being the Son of God, who had been growing to manhood in 
obscurity, another scarcely less important question forced 
itself upon him: In what sense was he to be the Messiah of 
Israel?’’* The Messianic consciousness of Jesus has still 
always ‘“‘two souls. ... His vocation means for him a 
problem which only the future can solve. . . . An immense 
burden was thereby laid upon his soul, and a problem con- 
fronted him, the solution of which must have sometimes 
appeared very difficult.’’° ‘ The perception of the task which 
the Father had entrusted to him could develop only by work 
and by victory over every sort of resistance.”® ‘‘ To such 
a degree did Jesus, his whole life long, elaborate and purify 
the Messianic title, assumed at first by inward compulsion.’’? 

It was at first a question whether he should look upon his 
vocation in the sense of the Jewish nationalistic conception of 
the Messiah, involving the religious-political liberation of his 
people, and hence the establishment of a secular and earthly 
Messianic kingdom, or in the sense of a religious and spiritual 


1 Harnack, Wesen des Christentums, 88. 

2 Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 1573; see also 
Julius Kaftan, Jesus und Paulus, 13. 

3 Hess, Jesus von Nazareth, 11. 

4 Willibald Beyschlag, Das Leben Jesu, i, 231. 

5 J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu, 156. 6 Harnack, Wesen, 89. 

7 Wernle, Die Anfange unserer Religion, 34. 


Origin of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consciousness 207 


liberation and the establishment of a Kingdom of God founded 
in the hearts of men. And if the latter course were chosen, 
then he must again ask himself whether he could found this 
kingdom now, in his earthly life, moving from victory to 
victory and from triumph to triumph, or whether he could do 
so only after having passed through suffering, death and the 
grave, and only at his second coming from heaven as the 
Messianic Son of Man? These were the two problems, to 
which the following period of his public life was gradually to 
furnish the solution. 

First, the question whether he was to be a political or a 
spiritual Messiah, and to found a political or a spiritual Mes- 
sianic kingdom. That this alternative weighed upon the mind 
of the Saviour very seriously is proved, our opponents say, by 
the Gospel history of his temptation, concerning which the 
critics assure us “ that it was not one single passing fact, but 
that it extended over the whole life of Jesus following the 
baptism.’’+ “The same spirit which had given him the cer- 

tainty of his vocation drove him with great violence into the 
_ desert,’’? where he was exposed to unheard-of conflicts with 
the devil. According to the enemies of supernatural revela- 
tion, this cannot, of course, be the historical report of a real 
external fact, but only the “symbolic veiling’’ of an inner 
psychical crisis*? in Jesus, ‘a psychological experience of 
Jesus in a condensed symbolic form.’’* ‘ Translated into our 
mode of speech or thought, the powerful exultation and 
blessed joy which he feels under the outpouring of divine love 
and strength from above, yield suddenly to a profound agita- 
tion. Doubts and cares press upon him. On all sides possi- 
bilities are revealed to him, which he feels are temptations 
and sinful paths. In short, violent inward struggles replace 
the first blessed certainty and enthusiasm.’’? The history of 
the temptation “‘ is certainly the result of an inward conflict in 
Jesus, through which, at the beginning of his public life, he 
was forced to fight his way to a clear apprehension of the 
course which he must follow in his vocation.’’® 

“What does this mean? Evidently the repudiation of a 
false, sensuous ideal of the Messiah. That is particularly 
evident in the third phase of his temptation, the purport of 
which was the offer of universal dominion at the price of doing 
homage to the prince of this world. The ideal of an imme- 
diate visible Messianic kingdom, a world kingdom which, 
proceeding from Sion, should unite all nations under his 
sceptre, presents itself before the mind’s eye of the newly 
anointed. But he sees that such a kingdom can be established 


1 Stapfer, /ésus-Christ avant son ministére, 152; cf. Kiihl, of. czt., 13. 
2 J. Weiss, op. cit, 156. 3 Stapfer, Zc. 

4 Loisy, L’Zvangile et lEglise, 20. 

5 J. Weiss, op. cit., 156. 6 Kihl, op. czt., 13. 


208 Christ and the Critics 


only by the aid of the Evil One and by the instrumentality of 
worldly violence and intrigue, not by the agencies of spirit 
and truth, which are alone divine. Accordingly he rejects it. 
But the two preceding phases of his temptation also belong to 
the same false ideal—a Messiah who, by the arbitrary use of 
his miraculous powers, could remove any external want that 
he might feel, and who could avoid the burden laid upon him 
by his vocation, and who then, by a bold act of daring, 
crowned with success by God’s assistance (perhaps the attain- 
ment of the nation’s independence), could capture at a stroke 
the faith of the people. Such a Messiah was the necessary 
preliminary requisite for erecting that Messianic world 
kingdom of which the people dreamed. Starting from such 
apparently innocent and insinuating preliminary conditions, 
therefore, Jesus at that time examined point by point the 
Messianic ideal, which the spirit of his people and of the age 
had given him, until at last, fully realizing the point aimed at 
and the means necessary to attain it, he saw its incompati- 
bility with a divine purpose, and consequently recognized in 
the spirit, which thus counselled and demanded, the tempter, 
Satan, the opponent of God. To recognize him as such meant 
for Jesus his instant rejection. . .. Jesus had, therefore, 
first to test those popular expectations, which may perhaps 
have exerted upon him a certain alluring charm, and hence he 
had no fixed, definite Messianic ideal, which would in advance 
have excluded those expectations.’’+ 

‘It appears that Jesus himself subsequently related figura- 
tively to his intimates (to whom such instruction could be only 
a blessing, in view of their ever-renewed hopes of a Jewish 
kingdom) how the first profound contact of his soul with the 
Messianic thought was a temptation to sin, a temptation to 
consider the flesh as his weapon, and to attempt the path to 
the Messiahship by means of insurrection and the sword. 
These had already, it is true, been tried before his day unsuc- 
cessfully, but would not God perhaps allow him, Jesus, 
by these means to succeed? ... This temptation to be 
untrue to himself was not a mere passing one; he had first to 
experience it, and finally to subdue it thoroughly. But the 
result was a victory for his better, divinely begotten self... . 
Jesus remains true to himself and to the thoughts which had 
urged him onward at the beginning. God wishes to create 
the new, blessed era from within, out of the hearts of the 
pious.’’? 

Stapfer, Beyschlag, J. Weiss, Kihl and P. W. Schmidt 
inform us, therefore, that Jesus had to fight out an actual 
spiritual conflict with the Jewish political Messianic ideal, 
which up to that time had been also his own. Only after this 


1 Beyschlag, Das Leben Jesu, i, 234-236. 
2 Schmidt, Die Geschichte Jesu, i, 59, 60, 114, 


Originiof Christ's Messianic Consciousness 209 


long-continued crisis had been overcome did he arrive at the 
firm conviction that his task was a purely religious and 
spiritual one. 

This assertion, however, contradicts in a twofold manner 
the most positively assured facts. It is certain from the 
synoptic reports’ that the temptation came to Jesus only out- 
wardly, without the slightest spiritual conflict, and without 
in the least disturbing the equanimity and serenity of his 
soul. Equally evident is it, from the history of the temptation, 
that we are not justified in harbouring even the faintest sus- 
picion that Jesus could have cherished any sort of inclination 
to the political Messianic idea of his people. Rather does 
everything indicate that he already then must have rejected 
every profanation and secularization of the Messiahship with 
the same decisiveness and the same inward aversion with 
which he rejected them in the whole of his subsequent life. 

This fact is so clear and incontestable that most of the 
critics see themselves compelled to refuse adherence to 
Stapfer, Beyschlag, J]. Weiss and Schmidt. ‘‘ They were not 
fancies and ideals which had arisen from an evil, selfish 
nature hostile to God, and from an inclination in Jesus to be 
self-opinionated; an inference of those temptations from the 
soul of Jesus in this sense is certainly to be repudiated. But 
they were Messianic conceptions and ideals which had come 
to him from without—that is, from the prevailing views and 
traditions of his countrymen. . . . From the baptism on, one 
of his fixed ideas was the perception that the true kingdom of 
God was not a kingdom of earthly supremacy and the enjoy- 
ment of external prosperity, but rather that those who wished 
to participate, as true children of God, in the eternal life of 
the kingdom of God, must, instead of ruling, serve others out 
of love, and for the sake of heavenly blessings must give up 
striving after earthly treasures. Since he could conceive of 
his Messiahship only in connection with this idea of the nature 
of the kingdom of God, and with the object of establishing 
a kingdom of God of this sort, he was obliged from the 
very beginning to recognize the necessity of himself, as the 
Messiah, giving proofs of this loving service and of this 
renunciation for the sake of the kingdom of God in a 
specially high degree.’’? 

Like Wendt, Oskar Holtzmann,? B. Weiss,4 Wernle® and 
other liberal investigators also maintain that the illusion of 
the political réle of the Messiah only reached his ear and 
played around his fancy from without. It found no echo 
in his soul. Rather did he recognize it “ unhesitatingly as 

1 Matt. iv, 1-11; Mark i, 12 f.; Luke iv, 1-13. 

2 Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, go, 489 f. 

® Leben Jesu, 112, 113 f. 4 Leben Jesu, i, 314. 


5 Die Anfainge unserer Religion, 32 f.; see Harnack, Wesen des 
Christentums, 21 f., 88 f. 


I. 14 


210 Christ and the Critics 


Satanic,’’! and cried out: ‘‘ No, those are voices of the devil 
which appeal thus to my Messianic feeling. Away with 
thems? 

But if that is the case, where then remains the alleged 
transformation and progressive evolution of the Messianic 
consciousness of Jesus from the political to the spiritual ideal? 
Both before, during and after the temptation Jesus immov- 
ably, and in spite of all delusions to the contrary, holds fast to 
the conviction that he is called to found a purely spiritual and 
religious kingdom of God. The temptation brought to him 
no new conception and no evolution of his Messiahship what- 
soever. That is the epitomized meaning of all that has been 
said. 

Moreover, for the sake of argument, we have always taken 
it for granted that im the Gospel account of the temptation it 
was merely a symbolical representation of a spiritual expert- 
ence and of a discord which had gradually arisen in the soul of 
Jesus, either from within (as Stapfer, J. Weiss, Beyschlag 
and Schmidt maintain), or from without (as Wendt, B. Weiss, 
Harnack, O, Holtzmann, Wernle and others assert). But 
this presupposition stands in direct opposition to the words 
of the Gospel. The synoptists speak of a strictly historical 
occurrence, not of a dramatization of psychical conditions in 
the soul of Jesus. This occurrence takes place outside the 
soul of Jesus. In fact, it turns upon a dialogue between two 
real persons—between the Saviour on the one hand, and 
Satan the tempter on the other. It is sufficient to read the 
Gospels in order to perceive this, and hence to acknowledge 
that their text excludes any psychological change in Jesus 
regarding the Messiah. 

If, on the contrary, that supposition can be in any way 
justified, then the literal historical text must be given up and 
travestied into a parable of the soul-struggles of Jesus. The 
origin of such a thought can only have been the wish to 
establish an evolutionary historical progress in the life of the 
Lord, and, above all, the liberal theologians’ fear of the 
devil. Everyone will understand that this “ critical ’’ difficulty 
does not deter us from holding fast to the Gospel text. 

All the more is this justified because the conflict of Jesus 
with Satan after the baptism corresponds perfectly to the 
whole situation, and denotes a real and true advance in the 
life of the Saviour. Even Loisy has recognized this correctly : 
“The consecration to the Messiahship, conferred at the bap- 
tism, had, as its consequence, the temptation of Christ. © 
Avowedly the Messiah was to contend with Satan and conquer 
him. . . . The decisive conflict, from which he was to emerge 
as victor, was death. But if after his baptism he was already 
considered as the Messiah, the opportunity of an encounter 


1 Weiss, of. ctt., 314. 4% Wernle, of: citiviess 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 211 


with the devil had even then to be given him. Hence the great 
scene of the temptation in the desert.” It also agrees with 
the attitude which evil spirits henceforth:assumed towards 
Jesus by seeking to publish abroad his Messiahship prema- 
turely, and thereby to frustrate it. Our opponents have, 
therefore, no ground whatever for suspecting that the history 
of the temptation was only a parable in which the spiritual 
struggles of Jesus concerning his Messianic vocation are 
allegorized. 

If, nevertheless, one is determined to hold to such an inter- 
pretation of the passages in the Gospels, then the problem must 
first be solved how it happened that the psychological experi- 
ences of Jesus were represented in the form of an actual 
temptation by the devil. The answer can only culminate in 
the alternative—either the orthodox tradition given by the 
Evangelists has pictured to itself the temptation of Jesus thus, 
or else Jesus himself has regarded the action of his spiritual 
thoughts and feelings as an outward temptation by the devil. 
The first of these hypotheses is plainly inadmissible for liberal 
criticism, which proceeds from the fundamental standpoint 
that the orthodox tradition of the earliest time has done every- 
thing to glorify the human historical portrait of Jesus by 
making it a heavenly and divine representation of Christ. 
Here, however, in the history of the temptation, Jesus, on the 
contrary, is lowered even to the sphere of diabolical machina- 
tions. Tradition, and therefore the Evangelists, cannot have 
invented that history. It originates with Jesus himself. 

Holtzmann expresses himself on this point as follows: 
“Jesus informed his disciples of the inward conflicts which he 
had experienced after the revelation of his Messiahship at his 
baptism, making thereby the happiest use of some distinct 
individual reminiscences in the classical form of this kind of 
narration.’’*? Then, however, he would have to be charac- 
terized as a rhapsodist and visionary, consequently as a man 
whose consciousness is clouded by irrational ideas.* On this 
point we agree again with Renan, and we say that the Liberal 
idea of the evolution of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus 
during the period of temptation thereby surrenders its own 
position. 

There now ensued, according to our opponents’ theory, an 
_ interval of hopeful activity, during which Jesus believed that 
_he could establish the spiritual kingdom of God without delay 
and without provoking a crisis. Then began a period of 


1 Loisy, Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 185-186. 

® See p. 138 of this vol. 3 Leben Jesu, 118; cf. 110 f. 

“ Beyschlag also remarks: ‘*‘ The visionary interpretation of the 
history of the temptation attributes the story to the soul of Jesus; but 
if these visions had come from his own natural heart, that would have 
been a centre of evil thoughts; and if God had suggested them to him, 
no one would know why and for what purpose,” of. c7z¢., p. 233. | 


212 Christ and the Critics 


desertions and of difficulties occasioned by the people, the 
Pharisees and the leaders of the nation; and now there 
first gradually dawned upon the consciousness of Jesus the 
thought that he must enter into his Messianic glory and 
supremacy through suffering and death. This, according to 
some isolated critics, is the second stage in the psychological 
evolution of Jesus during his public life. 

“It was very natural for those who held the old conception 
of the life of Jesus to attribute in advance the divine plan for 
establishing the kingdom of redemption, as it subsequently, 
in the course of events, came to be known—that is, God’s 
determination to sacrifice his Son for the salvation of the 


world . . . to the soul of Jesus also, as a plan of which he 
was fully conscious. Such a conception is at once repugnant 
to us moderns. . . . To one who considers the matter with- 


out prejudice and historically, it is evident that Jesus could 
grasp the thought that he was fated to die only when, through 
experience, the knowledge of an irresistible antagonism 
between what he had to bring and the spirit prevailing in the 
people forced itself upon him, and thus the inevitable breach 
between himself and his people revealed itself. ... The 
public life of Jesus began under other constellations than those 
which indicated the death of the cross. Jesus hoped to save a 
people as such, which, of course, was possible only if it did 
not reject its Messiah and nail him to the cross.’’ 

According to Wernle, ‘‘ the Messiah was associated, in the 
imagination of the Jews, with unalloyed heavenly and earthly 


glory. . .. In the soul of Jesus bitter experience with his 
people ripened the thought of the necessity of suffering and 
even death. . .. The Messianic glory became for him now 


an aim, which does not fall to the lot of a favoured man 
through any special fortune, but rather must be won by end- 
less effort, renunciation, and even death, in obedience to the 
moral law.’’? 

Bousset remarks: ‘‘ The scene of Gethsemani points back- 
wards. This clear apprehension of his fate, this submission 
to God’s will, can have been given to Jesus only little by little, 
as aresult of severe conflict. Intimations, constantly growing 
stronger, must have passed through his soul already long 
before Gethsemani. The more clearly Jesus surveyed the 
lack of results arising from his work among his people, and 
the stronger the certainty became in him that this people was 
travelling along the path to destruction and had been aban- 
doned by God, the darker must have seemed to him also the 
fate of his own life, and the more certain the feeling that his 
activity must have a disastrous ending.’’* ‘Into the sunny 
picture, full of the highest hopes of victory, the gloomy, 


1 Beyschlag, of. ctt., 237-239. 2. Wernle; of) city 341 
3 Bousset, Jesus, 87 f. 


Origin of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consciousness 213 


menacing forms of his enemies force themselves upon the 
gaze of Jesus—the Elders, the High Priests, the scribes, the 
whole Sanhedrim and those of the people who blindly obey it. 
That they will pronounce excommunication upon him is doubly 
certain if he claims his kingdom—excommunication and 
death.”! Stapfer,? J. Weiss® and Ernst Kihl* also subscribe 
to these opinions. 

If we ask their reasons for this, we are given only one— 
namely, that Jesus began to speak openly and unreservedly 
of his death only after the end of his Galilean activity ; that is, 
after the day of Cesarea Philippi. From this one fact that 
Jesus did not earlier disclose his consciousness of approach- 
ing suffering, the conclusion is drawn that he had had no such 
consciousness at all. Every beginner in historical criticism 
knows, however, how uncritical such an argumentum ex 
- silentio is. 

It is rejected also by the most important liberal investi- 
gators. Wendt, for example, says: “From the fact that 
Jesus first spoke to his disciples of his suffering and death 
after the confession of Peter, it of course does not follow that 
he himself, precisely at that time, first recognized the destiny 
of suffering that awaited him.’’> “From this it does not 
follow that the thought of death had now for the first time, or 
only a little while before, occurred to Jesus.”’® ‘‘ Jesus believes 
himself to be the Messiah. But he knows that the Messiah is 
to come in the clouds of heaven when he brings the kingdom 
of God. So he himself, therefore, must be lifted up to God 
before his glorious appearing. Whether he thought from the 
very beginning that this would be effected by his death we do 
not know.’’’ It cannot, therefore, be proved from the Gospel 
that the consciousness of his (coming) suffering and death 
came to him only gradually. This might well satisfy us, for 
this is the very point to be determined in our inquiry. 

But we can go still further and conversely say that from the 
facts stated in the Gospels it is evident that Jesus, already 
before the confession of Peter at Cesarea Philipp1, was aware 
of the tragic end awaiting him. The conviction of this breaks 
forth already at Cesarea so definitely, so forcibly and so 
naturally from the depth of his heart, that, far from being an 
idea which comes to him now for the first time, it had been in 
his mind secretly for a long time. Both Wendt and B. Weiss 
remark this. “The inward certainty with which he asserts 
the necessity of this fatality, and rejects the remonstrance of 
Peter (Mark viii, 32), proves that he had already fought out 
and conquered the temptation which this destiny of suffering 


+ Schmidt, of. cit., 120; ¢f. 122-126. 

2 Jésus-Christ avant son mintstére, 222 ff. 

3 id., 1c8. 4 id., 61 f; 5 Wendt, of. ¢7?., 480. 

$ B. Weiss, td., ii, 261. 7 O. Holtzmann, of. ctt., 139. 


i  Obrist and the Critics 


offered to his Messianic consciousness and his Messianic faith- 
fulness.’’! Mark, moreover, “ especially emphasizes the fact 
that Jesus began to speak then for the first time openly and 
unreservedly of his death, not that he had not spoken of it at 
SUL 

He had already repeatedly informed his disciples in regard 
to it, although less forcibly and in the form of allegory. 
Before the confession of Peter he had told them that he would 
give them his flesh and blood as food and drink, and that he 
would go back to his Father in heaven (John vi, 48-63). Still 
earlier he had represented himself as the sign of Jonas: ‘‘ For 
as Jonas was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights, 
so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days 
and three nights’’ (Matt. xii, 39, 4o). And at a still earlier 
date he had, in reference to his body, spoken of the destruc- 
tion of the temple (John ii, 19-21), and announced that the 
Son of Man must be lifted up like the serpent in the wilder- ° 
ness, that whosoever believed on him might have life ever- 
lasting (John iii, 14, 15). 

In fact, according to the unanimous testimony of the 
synoptists, already at the beginning of his public work he 
intimated to his disciples that they would lose him by death: 
‘But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken 
away from them, and then they shall fast in those days” 
(Mark ii, 20; Matt. ix, 15; Luke v, 34). 

Accordingly, there was never wanting sufficient, even if less 
positive, information regarding the suffering and death of 
Jesus. Long before the Galilean crisis arose, and especially 
long before the partisan fury of the Pharisees and of the 
inflamed populace led anyone to imagine his ultimate fate, 
Jesus was well aware that he must suffer and die. 

Thus the psychological solution of the problem of Christ’s 
suffering, as given by liberal investigators, is unmasked as_ 
historically untrue. It is not the increasing crisis that 
familiarizes the Saviour little by little with the thought of 
suffering. His consciousness of coming suffering was present 
earlier and independent of his successes or failures, and it 
grew out of the depths of his own being. Moreover, he 
announced his destiny of suffering, first in parables and as 
it were through a veil, and then clearly and forcibly, not 
because the opposition to him was at first small and later 
increased in hatred and in numbers, but, on the contrary, this 
vevelation, as we have shown elsewhere, stood wisely related 
to his whole system of instructing his disciples. This began 
by directing their attention to the Messiah, and then by © 
awakening and strengthening their faith in him. Only then 
could teaching concerning the import of the Messiahship be © 
begun and the transformation of their Jewish ideas of the 


1 Wendt, of. cit., 480. 2 B. Weiss, of. cit., 260 f, 


Origin of Cbhrist’s Messianic Consctousness 215 


Messiah be gradually accomplished. And the greatest, the 
most difficult, and final step, consisted in making them 
familiar with the idea of the Messiah’s suffering and death, 
which was most antagonistic to their Jewish sentiments, and 
which they could only fully grasp after Jesus had died and 
risen again. 

It is at once clear that holders of the nationalistic theory 
must claim at any price a continuous evolution of the Mes- 
sianic consciousness of Jesus, and that this evolution must 
keep step precisely with the external circumstances of his 
life. Otherwise, how could they still defend their favourite 
thesis, according to which the Messiah Jesus was essentially 
a florescence of his age and civilization, and his Messiahship 
merely a result of that florescence? But let them not assert 
such an evolution of the Messianic consciousness during the 
public life of Jesus in the name of Gospel history! Even Loisy 
writes : “‘ The Gospels contain actually no grounds for suppos- 
ing an evolution which completed itself in the Saviour’s con- 
sciousness and with relation to his manner of fulfilling the 
task given him by providence. For such an evolution there 
was lacking sufficient time, in view of the brief duration of 
his public activity. . . . The very simple stock of thoughts 
and impressions which constitute his Gospel appears to have 
been present from the beginning—a purely religious and moral 
conception of the kingdom and of the conditions which lead to 
it. Jesus appears perfectly equipped for his task as soon as 
he begins to preach. The obstacles which he encountered 
taught him nothing new, either regarding the import of his 
mission or the essential conditions of fulfilling it.’’! 

The hypothesis of the evolution of the Messianic conscious- 
ness of Jesus during his public life must, therefore, be rejected. 
There remains, however, the question: What are we to think 
of the alleged origin of this consciousness before the public 
life of the Saviour? 


III.—ORIGIN OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST 
AT HIS BAPTISM. 


Modern liberal criticism holds almost throughout firmly to 
the supposition that the baptism of Jesus marks the moment 
of the birth of his Messianic consciousness. 

Among the more important investigators, only Karl von 
Hase? and lately Bernhard Weiss? are of the opinion that the 
faith of Jesus in his Messianic vocation was formed in him at 
least subsequently to his twelfth year, and that it surely came 
to absolute certainty before his baptism. The other critics 
either explain with great positiveness the baptism in the 


1 Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 212 f. 
2 Geschichte Jesu, 285 ff. 3 Leben Jesu, i, 279-283, 2094 ff. 


O16 Christ and the Critics 


Jordan as the original “ natal hour of the Messiah,’’* and the 
history of the baptism of Jesus as the “ historical birth of his 
Messianic consciousness,”? or else they consider as ‘* prob- 
able’? and ‘‘in the highest degree likely” the view that 
assigns the awakening of the Messianic consciousness to a 
time previous to the baptism.* 

If we ask the reasons for such an interpretation, the 
majority of the critics forthwith refer us to the fact that the 
simplest, and, indeed, the only possible way 1s to represent the 
Messianic consciousness as something historical and evolu- 
tionary. Jesus is said by them to have felt, during his quiet 
life at Nazareth, more and more that he was the “Son of 
God,’’ and accordingly to have “ thought himself into’’ Mes- 
sianic ideas and situations. The Baptist’s preaching of the 
kingdom, and the popular movement called forth by him, 
raised this psychological conception to the highest degree, 
and when Jesus allowed himself to be baptized he thought that 
he perceived inwardly, through God’s agency, the confirma- 
tion of his psychical emotions, and so “ experienced ’’ his 
Messianic vocation. 

The representation continually recurring in these writers, 
with but few divergences, is somewhat as follows: “ Jesus 
had concentrated all his thoughts and mental powers upon 
the smallest and most inconspicuous point—the secret relation 
of his life to God. . . . Then the news from the Jordan pro- 
duced an overwhelming impression upon the heart of Jesus. 
He carried with him to the Jordan a secret question which was 
to be addressed to God, and into which his whole previous 
spiritual life condensed itself—namely, whether his hour also 
had not now come to speak of what had been revealed to him 
in secret communion with his heavenly Father. The solemn 
agitation in his soul increased at sight of this community of 
the baptized, these crowds of people without a leader and yet 
susceptible to prophetic exhortation. It waxed stronger on 
beholding the august form of the Baptist, who with impas- 
sioned words was exerting to the utmost all his powers, and 
to this was added a consciousness of the incomparably great 
moment. Modestly and unobserved, Jesus also advanced to 
request baptism—the Galilean before the preacher of repent- 
ance! But an overwhelming emotion secretly flooded his 
heart, and when he emerged from the water, praying for and 
vowing purity of soul in every temptation to sin, the ecstasy 
seized him. He saw from the opened heavens the Spirit of 
God descending upon him, and perceived signs from heaven, 
which at last assured him that God was calling him to proclaim 
his new faith among his people. . .. Jesus knew that he 


1 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 23. 
2 Regensburg, l.c., i, 210. 
3 Loisy, Les Evangtles synoptiques, 1, 206. Bousset, Jesus, 8c. 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 217 


had been sent to bring to completion the final era of the 
world.’’? 

We receive no further explanation. But that is regarded 
as sufficient, since the Messianic consciousness of Jesus must 
be merely the result of natural development, and this develop- 
ment cannot be made credible otherwise than by the above 
psychological fabrication. 

But the question is precisely whether this psychological 
fabrication, and with it the audaciously asserted origin of the 
Messianic consciousness at the time of the baptism in the 
Jordan, can be justified historically. Where the liberal in- 
vestigators conclude their explanation a great interrogation 
point must be placed. How and on what grounds can it be 
proved that the subjective view of the defenders of the evolu- 
tion theory corresponds to the objective facts in the life of 
Jesus? 

Only a few critics, particularly Willibald Beyschlag? and 
Oskar Holtzmann,? find it worth their while to furnish this 
proof. Proceeding from the conviction that Jesus, subsequent 
to his baptism, had undoubtedly a positive Messianic con- 
sciousness, they try to prove, on the one hand, that this con- 
sciousness had been unknown to the Saviour before that 
occurrence, and, on the other hand, that the communication of 
that consciousness took place in connection with the baptism. 

On the latter point Beyschlag writes: “ The narrative of 
the baptism, uniformly placed by the synoptic Gospels at the 
beginning of the public life of Jesus, is evidently intended to 
inform us of the origin of his Messianic consciousness. It 
describes how the Spirit of God descended upon him, and, 
therefore, how he became the spiritually Anointed One, or the 
Messiah, for that indeed is the meaning of this name... . 
Heaven—that is, the upper, immaterial world—opened above 
him as he was baptized by John, that it might send down upon 
him in abundant measure its highest gift; gently, as it were 
upon the wings of a dove, the Holy Spirit descends upon him, 
whom, as a prophet, it will not visit only temporarily, but 
upon whom, as the spiritually anointed, it will remain; and 
what the symbols bring before his inward vision a divine 
voice within him explains to his spiritual ear, combining the 
words of Ps. ii, 7 and Isa. xlii, 1 thus: “‘ This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased’’—that is, my chosen 
Messiah.* Oskar Holtzmann® interprets the events at the 
baptism in a precisely similar manner. 

The fact itself, therefore, that Jesus was recognized, at his 
baptism, as the Son of God, and that the Holy Ghost was 


1 P. W. Schmidt, Die Geschichte Jesu, i, 53, 56-57; similarly, Hess, 
Jesus von Nazareth, 11; Bousset. l.c., 80; Stapfer, l.c., 152; Loisy, Les 
Evangtles synoptigues, 1, 206, 408, etc. 

2 Leber Jesu, i, 224 ff. 3 Leben Jesu, 99 ff. 

4 Bevschlag, of. czt., pp. 216, 218. SOD. cil); Dy toa: 


218 Christ and the Critics 


then communicated to him, is supposed to prove the simul- 
taneous awakening of his Messianic consciousness. But this 
fact permits of another interpretation also, which has been 
given to the occurrence at the baptism both by the Evangelists 
and by all the Christian centuries—namely, that at his baptism 
Jesus received, in presence of the forerunner John, his divine 
attestation as being the Messiah, his visible, spiritual conse- 
cration to the Messianic vocation, and therewith also the 
supernatural announcement that the time appointed by God 
for the fulfilment of the Messianic vocational work had begun. 
“That Jesus became the Messiah, as Luther became the 
reformer—inwardly prepared for it, yet without having any 
premonition of it—that the realization of his vocation... 
came over him one day suddenly and with unexpected and 
overpowering divine power,”* and that ‘‘ at the moment of 
baptism the consciousness of his Messianic calling was 
awakened and came into existence through a meeting and 
contact of his soul with his heavenly Father,’’? does not at all 
appear from the events at the baptism. Rather does every- 
thing indicate the contrary. As Bartmann significantly indi- 
cates: ‘‘ Christ himself receives it (the divine revelation at 
the baptism) in thankful prayer, yet without excitement or 
inquiry. For him it is no beginning, no turning-point in his 
sonship, no revelation of a secret, no matter of faith concern- 
ing which he might subsequently have doubts, no lofty height 
reached by a moral struggle from which he could be again 
thrown down, and no light from above which the earthly man 
in the darkness of this life, of which even a spiritually endowed 
Paul complains, longingly seeks for and joyfully retains. For 
him it is the confirmation of an existing fact.’’ 

To this, it is true, Oskar Holtzmann objects that the way 
in which the events of the baptism took place indicates that it 
was a matter of a real change and transformation of the con- 
sciousness of Jesus. Holtzmann assumes at once that the 
heavenly voice and the communication of the Spirit on that 
occasion were not historical events perceptible by the senses, 
but merely a vision, an inward, ecstatical experience which 
“happened only in the soul of Jesus, and throughout had 
reference to Jesus only.’’* The effect of this inward and 
visionary seeing and hearing must, accordingly, also have 
been an inward, “complete transformation of his life’’ and 
consciousness. ° 

But this conclusion does not all result from Holtzmann’s 
premises. However the events of the baptism may be inter- 
preted, whether as an external or an internal experience, and 
whether this was known to Jesus only or to other persons 


1 Beyschlag, op. cit., 225. Staten 
3 Das Himmelreich und sein Konig, 124 f. 
4 op. cit,,'p. 105. 8 OD, 68ts, aks 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 219 


also, does not alter the facts at all. In any case, the question 
would remain whether Jesus actually received the Messianic 
consciousness at his baptism, or whether only the final conse- 
cration was conferred upon him by the heavenly voice and the 
indwelling of the Holy Ghost; and in any event this latter 
supposition would have to be answered aflirmatively after due 
consideration of the reasons already given. 

But how about the premises themselves which Holtzmann 
lays down? In the first place, was Jesus the only witness 
of the heavenly voice and the descent of the Holy Ghost, 
as Holtzmann and Wendt,' among others, assert? The 
Gospels deny this; Matthew (ili, 16) and Mark (i, 10) simply 
tell us that Jesus saw the heavens open and the Spirit descend 
upon him. Whether the Baptist was also an eye-witness of 
this is not said. It seems, however, to be taken for granted, 
since it is at once remarked quite objectively of the heavenly 
voice: ‘‘ And behold a voice from heaven saying, This is my 
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’’ The representation 
also makes the impression of having originated from the 
Baptist, who also saw and heard these things. Still more is 
this the case in Luke’s narrative, where the whole scene 
is related from the standpoint of the observing Baptist : 
‘* Heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a 
bodily shape, as a dove upon him (Jesus), and a voice came 
from heaven: Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well 
pleased ” (Luke iii, 21-22). In the Fourth Gospel the report 
of the baptism is actually attributed to John the Baptist, who 
appears as an eye-witness. John relates that the Baptist had 
long ardently desired to meet among his neophytes him whom 
he, without knowing him personally, had proclaimed as the 
Greater One—that is, as the Messiah. God had revealed to 
him: “He upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending 
and remaining upon him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy 
Ghost.’’ As now Jesus comes before him and receives the 
baptism of water, John perceives the Holy Ghost descend like 
a dove and abide upon him, so that he can say of him posi- 
tively : “I saw and I gave testimony that this is the Son of 
God ”’ (John i, 26-34). 

Thus the four Gospels report in entire unanimity that both 
John and Jesus were eye and ear witnesses of the event. 
Even Beyschlag recognizes the impossibility of limiting this 
to Jesus only.” 

The proof also has been already furnished that O. Holtz- 
mann, even though receiving for it the approval of the whole 
liberal school of criticism,? is wrong in interpreting this as 


EXOD. -Cils5.° De. OF. AeODe ila De ahS. 

8 Thus Furrer, Das Leben Jesu Christi, 69, 2nd. ed.; W. Balden- 
sperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 160 ff.; H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 
07; System der christlichen Lehre, ii, 289 f.; Bousset, Jesus, 2 f.; 
H. J. Holtzmann, Neutestamentl. Theologie, i, 271; E. Schtirer, Das 


220 Christ and the Critics 


a mere vision. How could both John and Jesus have had at 
the same time precisely the same ecstatical experience, and 
(according to the liberal theory) have merely imagined that 
they saw the heavens opened and the descent of the Holy 
Ghost, and that they heard the voice of God from heaven? 
Rationalistic theologians will hardly accept this double 
psychological miracle at a moment when, through their fear 
of miracles and a divine revelation, they are contesting the 
reality of the events of the baptism. 

In addition to this, we have also the arbitrary attempt to 
represent Jesus as a visionary, in contradiction not only to the 
whole personality of the Saviour, but to the whole Gospel 
account of the baptism, against the credibility of which a 
valid argument has never yet been brought. Even critics like 
Beyschlag and Kihl reject the hypothesis that Jesus beheld a 
vision at his baptism, because “‘ the tendency to see visions, as 
we should have to suppose here in the case of Jesus, is found 
nowhere else in his life,’’! and because “ the whole impression 
of the personality of Jesus . . . makes the supposition of 
visionary conditions in his life quite impossible.’’? 

Beyschlag and Kihl, therefore, change somewhat the un- 
fortunate hypothesis of a ‘‘ vision” by limiting the abnormal 
and fantastic convulsion (for there can be no question among 
the naturalistic critics of any divinely produced ecstasy) to the 
Baptist only, and add “ that, corresponding to the vision of 
the Baptist, Jesus had an experience, by means of which he 
acquired at once, as a spiritual certainty, what the Baptist 
learned through a vision.’’? But that is truly to fall from the 
frying-pan into the fire. How could Jesus learn inwardly 
exactly what John beheld in an ecstasy, and vice versa, with- 
out a real supernatural coincidence? Of the contradiction 
between this pretence at getting out of the difficulty and the 
representation of the Gospel we will say nothing. The free- 
thinker, Friedrich Spitta, passes judgement on it with com- 
mendable frankness: “‘ The traditional view, held by critical 
theologians, that in the events of the baptism it was a question 
of a vision referring to Jesus only, and beheld by the Baptist, 





messianische Selbstbewusstsetn Christi, 13; B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, i, 
299, 303; P. W. Schmidt, Dze Geschichte Jesu, 57; W. Beyschlag, Leben 
Jesu, i, 218 f.; H. Zimmermann, Der historische Wert der dltesten 
Geschichte Jesu, 86 “ff; Fritz Scholl; Prot. Monatshefte, 180 (1907); 
J. Bornemann, Dze Taufe Christi durch Johannes in der dogmatischen 
Beleuchtung der christlichen Theologie der vier ersten Jahrhunderte 
(1906); Loisy, Le guairtéme Evangile, 229; L’Evangile et lEglise, 20, 
and ed.; Les E vangiles synoptiques, i, 185; Réville, Tésus ae Nazareth, 
tia ff: E. Kuhl, Selostbewusstsein Jesu, 39 ff. On the contrary side, 
Fritz Barth, Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu, 140 ff. 

1 Beyschlag, of. ctt., 219. 2 Kiihl, of. cit., 41. 

3 Kuhl, of. czt., 42, and similarly Beyschlag, of. ct?t., 219. 


Originfot Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 221 


has been rightly rejected by A. Merx! as a modern illusion. 
A voice from heaven and the appearance of a dove are there, 
so that they may be heard and perceived by those present.””” 

Thus every attempt to explain the events of the baptism as 
if they really gave to the Saviour the consciousness of his 
Messiahship fails. On the contrary, everything indicates that 
the baptism denotes, not the beginning of the Messianic con- 
sciousness, but the commencement of the Messianic activity. 
This conviction could be invalidated only by the proof that 
Jesus, before his baptism—that is, when he came to the 
Baptist—did not as yet possess the Messianic consciousness. 

Once more it is O. Holtzmann who undertakes to furnish 

this proof. In company with Strauss, he makes the Saviour 
enter upon his journey to the region around Jordan for baptism 
as a sinner in need of salvation, and as a man, who, like all 
others, needed a change of heart and forgiveness of sins, and 
who hoped to become, through baptism by water, a member of 
the coming Messianic kingdom, and was far from regarding 
himself as the appointed founder and future Lord of this 
kingdom—namely, the Messiah.* In fact, Holtzmann holds 
that the thought that he was the Messiah was so far from the 
mind of Jesus that he had not joined this movement towards 
baptism of his own accord, but had let himself be urged into 
taking part in it by the example of those around him: “ As 
Luther was actually forced into the Reformation, so Jesus 
had to be forced into his work. It is, as it were, from a pre- 
sentiment of persecution, flight and death on the cross that he 
dreads to meet the mighty preacher of penance, whose words 
are to unloose the forces still slumbering within him. 
Like so many others, Jesus also lets himself be baptized. A 
determination thenceforth to live only in accordance with 
God’s will, and the hope of thus participating in the kingdom 
of God, have urged him also to baptism.’’* 

In proof of these assertions, Holtzmann appeals to merely 
one passage in the apocryphal “ Gospel to the Hebrews,’’ in 
which it is said : ‘‘ Lo, the Mother of the Lord and his brethren 
said to him [Jesus]: John the Baptist is baptizing for the 
forgiveness of sins; we want to go and be baptized by him. 
But he said to them: In what have I sinned, that I should go 
thither and be baptized by him? Anything wrong that I have 
said must have been said through ignorance. . . .’”° 

Now it would be very easy to point out that this text of the 
Gospel to the Hebrews presupposes in Jesus sinlessness and 


1 Die Evangelien des Markus und Lukas, 14. 
2 Spitta, Das Johannes-Evangelium als Quelle der Geschichte Jesu, 
425 (Gottingen, 1910). 
3 Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, 99-103 ASTG ee TOD, 10% 
5 Nestle, Now Test. Graci Sustl., 76; Hennecke, Veutest. Apokry- 
phen, 19. 


222 Christ and the 3Critics 


Messianic consciousness, not sinfulness and need of redemp- 
tion. It would, however, be a pity to waste a single word 
over it. One can only feel amazement that so serious a critic 
as O. Holtzmann does not blush to draw his conclusions from 
so dark a source when the historical tradition of the canonical 
Gospels flows so clear and limpidly. 

This is not the place to demonstrate the absolute sinlessness 
of Jesus from his life in the Gospels. It is sufficient to point 
out that, according to the most indubitable representation of 
Jesus in the Gospels, he did not at all come to his baptism as 
a sinner and a seeker for salvation. 

The two oldest reports of the baptism in the Gospels of 
John and Matthew! express this with all the simplicity and 
clearness that could be desired. 

According to the Fourth Gospel, the Baptist publicly and 
officially (John i, 19-25) announced the approach of the 
Messiah, whose forerunner he was: “I baptize with water, 
but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know 
not. The same is he that shall come after me, who is pre- 
ferred before me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy 
to loose’’ (John i, 26, 27). ‘‘ The next day John saw Jesus 
coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold 
him who taketh away the sin of the world! This is he of 
whom I said, After me there cometh a man who is preferred 
before me, because he was before me. . . that he may be 
made manifest in Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with 
water ’’ (John i, 29-31). 

While the Fourth Gospel adheres so steadfastly to the scene 
in which John, after the baptism, makes the people acquainted 
with the sinless and sin-forgiving Messiah who has thus made 
his appearance, Matthew relates his meeting with Jesus before 
the baptism. He had just pointed the latter out with the 
words: “I indeed baptize you in water unto penance, but he 
that shall come after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am 
not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost 
and fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly 
cleanse his floor, and gather his wheat into the barn; but the 
chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire ’’ (Matt. iii, 11, 12). 

The Messiah is a judge and an avenger of what is evil, a 
bringer of salvation and one who baptizes with the Spirit. 
John recognizes as such the man who, immediately after this, 
comes from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized. In his 
presence the Baptist becomes conscious of his own poverty of 
soul and sinfulness, and instead of offering baptism for the 
forgiveness of sins and for a preparation for the kingdom of 
God to him, he asks to be himself baptized by him: “I ought 
to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?” (Matt. iii, 14). 


1 Beyschlag also, Leben Jesu, i, 21g, and B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, i, 
2053::300 5%, declare that the representation given by John, in connection 
with Matthew, is the oldest, and originates with the Baptist himself. 


Origin of Christ's Messianic Consciousness 223 


This, at all events, presupposes sinlessness. Otherwise we 
should have to suppose that the severe preacher of penance, 
who cast the reproach of sin into the faces of the greatest of 
this world, had wished to flatter obsequiously a sinful man 
from Nazareth. 

And Jesus does not reject the words of the Baptist as 
unsuitable. On the contrary, he confirms this view of John 
that he has no need of baptism and forgiveness, yet asks for 
baptism for other reasons: “ Suffer it to be so now, for so it 
becometh us to fulfil all justice’’ (Matt. ill, 15). He is willing 
to submit to the baptism of John voluntarily, since it was the 
will of God that all Israel should meet the coming kingdom 
of heaven in the spirit of repentance (Matt. iii, 1-6). 

Thus Jesus himself pointed out that baptism by water was 
neither the only thing necessary nor especially a sign and 
acknowledgement of sinfulness, but was, above all, the symbol 
of a decided turning of the will towards God and the approach- 
ing kingdom of heaven. Therefore it was fitting that pre- 
cisely he should receive it who, sinless and at one with God’s 
will, wished to call all men to the kingdom. 

Wendt rightly says: “If the main purpose of John’s 
baptism of repentance had been the confession and bewail- 
ing of sins hitherto committed, we should have to regard the 
coming of Jesus to this baptism as very strange, and would 
be able to see in it either an argument against the immaculate 
purity of his religious consciousness or the exhibition of a 
certain false modesty. But what John aimed at was evidently 
a change of heart from sin to the positive purpose of properly 
fulfilling the will of God. Hence it is quite comprehensible 
that Jesus, not only in spite of, but precisely because of, his 
consciousness of making a sincere effort to fulfil God’s will in 
childlike obedience, felt himself compelled to let the baptism 
of John be applied to him also. Thereby he put the seal upon 
his determination to have in mind only the fulfilling of the will 
of God, and gave to this moral and religious volition of his a 
definite application to the approach of the Messianic kingdom 
of salvation announced by the Baptist.’’? 

B, Weiss expresses himself in a similar way. ‘‘ The sym- 
bolism of John’s baptism,’’ he writes, ‘denotes merely the 
complete termination of the life hitherto led, and the beginning 
of a new and entirely different one. For the sinful people it 
was the ending of their previous life of sin and the commence- 
ment of a new, sinless existence, together with the solemn 
confirmation of a thorough change of disposition. This for 
one who was devoid of sin it could not be; but it confirmed in 
his case also the conclusion of his former life and the begin- 
ning of an entirely new one. It is true this previous life, 
which he now wished, as it were, to bury in the waters of the 
Jordan, had not been for him a sinful one, but it had been 


1 Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 96 f. 


224 Christ and the Critics 


devoted to the natural relations of his life, to his former 
human professional calling and to his previous training. The 
new life to which he rose from the baptismal waters was dis- 
tinguishable from his former life, not by his sinlessness, but 
only by the fact that it was thenceforth to be consecrated 
entirely to his supreme, divine vocation. In this sense Jesus 
saw, precisely in the command of God which summoned him 
also to baptism, the long-expected sign from his Father that it 
was now time to begin his Messianic career. It is true this 
solution of the question also presupposes that when he came 
for baptism he was already fully aware of his destined vocation 
to be the Messiah of Israel.’’? 

In reality the going of Jesus to baptism is only fully com- 
prehensible through this presupposition. If Jesus was con- 
scious of his Messianic vocation, then he came for baptism as 
the vicarious penitent for the sins of others and as the Servant 
of God, who made satisfaction for mankind, and of whom it 
had been written in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah that he 
would not separate himself from his sinful people, whose sins 
he would take upon himself, and whose unrighteousness he 
would destroy by his own righteousness. This conception 
alone corresponds to the line of thought found in the synoptic 
Gospels, and is expressly and unequivocally represented by 
John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel as the only correct one. 
Jesus there appears for the baptism by water as the long- 
desired Messiah (John 1, 27, 30) and as he who will confer, 
not the preparatory baptism by water, but the Messianic 
baptism of the Spirit (John 1, 26), and as the ‘“‘ Lamb of God” 
upon whom the sins of humanity are laid, and who “ taketh 
away the sin of the world’’ (John i, 29). 

Only in this light also do we understand the progressive 
revelation of God in the events of the baptism. Jesus comes 
before the Father in personal holiness and perfection, and 
completely prepared to consummate for sinful humanity Mes- 
sianic penance and Messianic righteousness. Then heaven 
opens, acknowledges him as the Messiah and God’s beloved 
Son, and his vicarious atonement as being pleasing to God, 
while the Holy Ghost, according to prophecy (Isa. Ixi, 1), seals 
this beginning of the Messianic work by descending upon the 
Saviour and abiding upon him. The evolutionary hypothesis, 
on the contrary, according to which Jesus came to his baptism 
not only without any Messianic consciousness, but even with 
a consciousness of personal sinfulness and need of redemption, 
not only has no basis of fact, but explains nothing and con- 
fuses everything, including its own line of reasoning concern- 
ing the evolutionary theory. The artificially woven thread of 
the natural development and preparation of Jesus, the equally 
natural end of which was to lead finally to the birth of the 


1 td., p. 208. Similarly Furrer, Das Leben Jesu Christi, 68 f., 2nd ed. 


Origin of Christ’s (Dessianic Consciousness 225 


Messianic consciousness at the baptism, is promptly and 
violently cut, and instead of the evolution so highly praised 
by our opponents there comes a complete revolution in the 
Saviour’s consciousness. For “there is no psychological 
transition possible from the consciousness of being a sinner 
in need of salvation, like all men, to that of being the Saviour 
from sin for all men.’’+ 

In consideration of this, the theory of Holtzmann is now 
rejected by all eminent representatives of the liberal school of 
investigation. Adolf Harnack expresses himself in regard to 
it as follows : ‘“‘ Unless everything deceives us, there lie behind 
the period of Jesus’ life which is known to us no violent crises 
and storms and no abrupt break with his past. Nowhere 
in his sayings and discourses, whether he threatens and 
punishes, or cordially invites and summons, or whether he 
speaks of his relation to the Father or to the world, do we 
perceive traces of spiritual revolutions which he has sup- 
pressed or scars of a fearful conflict. In him everything flows 
forth as a matter of course and as if it could not be otherwise, 
as a spring bursts forth from the depths of the earth, clear and 
unimpeded. Show us the man who at thirty years of age can 
speak thus if he has survived intense conflicts of the soul, in 
which he finally burns what he once adored, and adores what 
he once burned! Show us the man who has broken with his 
past in order then to call others to repentance, but who, in 
doing so, never speaks of his own repentance! This observa- 
tion excludes the possibility of his life having been passed in 
spiritual contrasts.’’? Similarly do B. Weiss, Beyschlag, 
Konrad Furrer, Wendt and others repudiate every attempt to 
support the hopelessly lost position of those who make the 
Messianic consciousness of Jesus originate from the baptism 
by saying that Jesus had been, before his baptism, himself a 
sinful man in need of salvation. 


IV.—PREPARATION OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF 
CHRIST IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS SONSHIP. 


The general endeavour of those who hold the evolutionary 
theory is rather to make the previous life of Jesus a continual 
preparation and increasing training for the subsequent recep- 
tion of his Messianic consciousness. The central point and 
soul of this preparation is said to be his consciousness of being 
the Son of God. Jesus, it is said, brought with him out of his 
youthful years and out of Galilee such a highly developed 
consciousness of sonship that from it, under the influence of 
the popular movement towards baptism in the Jordan, the 
Messianic consciousness had necessarily to make its appear- 
ance, as the flower develops from the bud under the quicken- 


1 Beyschlag, of. ctt., i, 228. 2 Wesen des Christentums, 21 f, 
I. % 


A) 


226 Christ ano the Critics 


ing rays of the sun. Here we get at the root of all efforts to 
explain the Messianic consciousness of Jesus as a result of 
gradual evolution. 

The unorthodox Christian view is simply forced to eradicate 
this root of its system unless it is willing to surrender and 
give up its naturalistic explanation of the belief of Jesus 
in his Messianic vocation. We have to do here, therefore, 
not with individual groups, but with the whole school of 
rationalistic and rationalizing investigators of the life of 
Jesus. They all inform us exhaustively how, from the inward 
disposition of the boy Jesus, and from the external circum- 
stances of his environment, the conviction little by little arose 
in his mind that he was the Son of God—that is, that he stood 
in a loving or childlike relation to his Father in heaven, which 
was not, it is true, based upon a physical sonship, yet signified 
a very peculiar ethical sonship. Our opponents, indeed, assert 
that the title Son of God, as Jesus understood it, ha exclu- 
sively this sense, and never means in Jesus essential divine 
sonship—that is, his real divinity. We shall investigate this 
problem later. For the present it is a question only of the 
origin of this consciousness of divine sonship and of its 
relation to his Messianic consciousness, however the former 
may be understood. This conviction already showed itself 
fully developed in the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple. 
Little by little this consciousness of sonship increased so much 
under his own moral activity and under the influence of the 
ideas of his time and surroundings, that he asked himself 
more and more whether he was not called to make his fellow- 
men also children of their Father in heaven, and thus to render 
the Messianic work and kingdom a reality. His baptism gave, 
then, the conclusive answer to this question by finally merging 
his consciousness of divine sonship into his consciousness of 
being the Messiah. 

Out of many dramatic descriptions’ of this psychological 
development of Jesus let us select only one of the most sig- 
nificant, at least in its main features. 

Konrad Furrer represents it thus: “‘ It stands to reason that 
in his father’s house he received early in life impressions of a 
very vital piety. ... Father and mother, teachers in the 
village, and instructors in the law, shared in the task of 
instructing the children in the Scriptures. We may, there- 


1 See, for example, Hess, Jesus von Nazareth, 4-9; Schmidt, Ge- 
schichte Jesu, 52-50; Wendt, "Die Lehre Jesu, 913 J. Kégel, Das Messias- 
bewusstsein Jesu, in Reich Christt, viii, 403-420; Stapfer, /ésus-Christ 
avant son ministére, 89, 188; Loisy, L’Evangile et PEglise, 56; Les 
Evangiles synoptiques, i, 408 ; Beyschlag, Leben Jesu, i, 1755 14, Gye 
B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, i, 279. Strangely enough, B. Weiss, 280-283, 
expresses ‘the view that the Messianic consciousness developed from that 
of sonship before the baptism, while Beyschlag, i, 224, supposes a 
sudden transition at the moment of baptism, 





Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 227 


fore, without hesitation, suppose that Jesus had early absorbed 
all the treasures of this wonderful collection of writings... . 
We cannot say in what year for the first time a higher pacep- 
tion of God awoke in that young soul. ... The Gospels 
give us only one, though certainly a very significant, ‘eport 
of the child Jesus, when twelve years old, in the temple. There 
the boy felt as if he were in heaven. He forgot the whole 
world in order to let himself be instructed about Gd and 
divine things by the wisest and most learned of his people. 
That was for him an unspeakably great joy. In cder to 
understand it we need only to remember how great :nd dis- 
tinguished artists often show in early youth a coisuming 
desire for their art. . . . Who has not read somehing of 
the kind of the renowned sculptor Canova or of Thowaldsen 
and others? As, therefore, these highly gifted atists ex- 
hibited in their tender years an ardent longing for at, so did 
the boy Jesus have a powerful yearning for the cbsest and 
most lasting communion with God possible. . . . Jesus felt 
the majesty of God most profoundly, and yet out of he depths 
of his soul was forced this cry : ‘ Wist ye not that! must be 
about my Father’s business?’ In the whole histry of the 
world there is no more certain fact than this, tha Jesus felt 
himself to be the Son of God, and that in obedince to the 
strongest impulse of his'soul he could not do othrwise than 
call God ‘ Father’ and himself his Son. ... low comes 
it that Jesus with such positiveness and steadfstness calls 
himself the Son of God? To this we have only ae answer : 
His spirit, as no other since him has done with:qual force, 
felt and experienced in himself pure goodness, hly love and 
limitless compassion as the supreme good... With his 
consciov’..ess of divine sonship Jesus stands abslutely alone 
in his time and in his world, for even the mot pious men 
among his contemporaries in their attitude towads God were 
penetrated only by a consciousness of being 1s servants. 
Hence there must have developed in him, ou of his own 
spiritual needs, a lofty sentiment, by reason of wich he knew 
himself to be called to perform a great and uniae task in the 
future. In other words, his Messianic consciouaess has been 
formed out of his consciousness of sonship.’’? 

This prettily devised hypothesis, condensed iro three Abort 
sentences, means that Jesus in earliest childhod acquired his 
unique consciousness of divine sonship throug the influence 
of his disposition and education, but that his fial conscious- 
ness, which was already complete in the twelv-year-old boy, 
had nothing to do with his Messianic thouhts. On the 
contrary, that consciousness developed itself rore and more, 
from his twelfth to his thirtieth year, in line vth a combina- 
tion of ideas regarding the divine sonship ar the Messiah, 


1 Konrad Furrer, Das Leben Jesu Christi, 465, 2nd ed. 


228 | Christ and the Critics 


and so became the germ out of which, at the moment of the 
baptism, his final Messianic consciousness sprang into being. 
We must examine these three statements separately. 

Firs\, the alleged gradual development of the consciousness 
of sonhip to the Messianic consciousness, from the twelfth to 
the thitieth year of Jesus. 

This \s, in brief, a necessary invention, unless, indeed, we 
call it ahecessary lie, inherent in a confused way of manufac- 
turing Hstory. We actually possess not a single particle of 
informaton about this period of Jesus’s life. The years of 
his yout) and early manhood are years of sacred stillness 
and profqind seclusion. Out of them not a sound reaches us. 
The so-cdled ‘‘ Gospel of Christ’s youth ’’ breaks off abruptly 
with the jeport of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple. 
Moreover} the liberal critics insist upon recognizing in that 






temple, or indulge in exaggeration concerning it 
in the namd¢of “ criticism.’’ ‘“ With the baptism we tread for 
in the life of Jesus on historical ground,’’? or, 


Very well; \nly this sort of criticism should then be honour- 
able enough t\ confess that the representations which it gives 
describing th\ passing of Jesus from the consciousness of 
sonship to tha of the Messiahship have their origin only in 
the pleasing jalm of fancy, and that the whole hypothesis 
referring to thm is every word pure invention. 

Moreover, tk presupposition also on which this hypothesis 
rests is itself ntrely an artificial fabrication—namely, the con- 
trast between he filial consciousness of the twelve-year-old 
lad and his Metianic consciousness. 

In order to jInderstand this, we must again bear in mind 


1 We shall takeyp the question of the genuineness and credibility of 
the Gospel of Chit’s youth in Part III. The account of the twelve- 
year-old Jesus is qnost universally regarded as historical by our critical 
opponents. See, f example, B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, i, 253; O. Holtz- 
mann, Leben Jesi 76; Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 94; Stapfer, Jésus- 
Christ avant son antstére, 58; Furrer, Leben Jesu Christi, 46. 

2 Hess, op. cit., 

3 Deissmann, “Zyngelium und Urchristentum, in Bettrége sur 
Weiterentwickelunjder christlichen Religion, 83 (Miinchen, 190s). 

4 Harnack, Wes4 des Christentums, 20, 87. 





Origin of Cbhrist’s Messianic Conscfousness 229 


that, previous to his baptism, Jesus had spoken only once of 
this filial relationship to God before he began his public 
activity. It was precisely that voluntary confession of his: 
‘* Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s busi- 
ness?” (Luke ii, 49). That this consciousness of being the 
Son of God excludes the consciousness of also being the 
Messiah cannot, however, be deduced from the words of the 
child Christ. 

The very contrary appears to be the case. For what is the 
Messianic vocation of Jesus other than exactly his exclusive 
absorption in his ‘‘ Father’s business’’? Even O. Holtzmann 
interprets the reply of the child Jesus thus: “ The narrative 
portrays to us the growing lad Jesus in a way exactly corre- 
sponding to his future activity.’’? 

We shall see later that the twelve-year-old boy really 
revealed even a divine consciousness, and that, therefore, any 
doubt of his having then been aware of his Messianic destiny 
is impossible. 

If, however, for the time being we do not interpret Jesus’ 
consciousness of sonship in the temple in that highest divine 
sense, its Messianic import can nevertheless be certainly dis- 
covered. We need only to ask how Jesus subsequently in his 
public life understood the title ‘“‘Son of God’ in its relgtion 
to the title of Messiah. From this consequence we can and 
must then draw our inferences in regard to the opinion held 
by him previously. 

Now there is not the least doubt that for Jesus the name 
“Son of God,’’ from the time of his baptism to the day cf his 
death, was always equivalent to “the Messiah.’’ Whether it 
does not mean still more—namely, his metaphysical, essential 
unity with his Father—must, as has been said already, be 
investigated elsewhere in this work. Our exposition regard- 
ing “the fact of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus”) fur- 
nishes for this ungestionable evidence. Indeed, our opponents 
themselves are so convinced of it that they invoke and obstin- 
ately defend the absolute identity of the titles ‘‘ Son of God’”’ 
and ‘‘ Messiah,” as soon as the conservative critics show signs 
of seeing in Jesus the Son of God, more than the Messiah. 

Already, in the account of the baptism and temptation— 
where the name Messiah is not yet found at all, but only that 
of the Father or of the Son—all liberal and rationalistic critics 
interpret the expression Son of God as a title of the Messiah. 
Why, then, should they hesitate to adopt such an exegesis 
only precisely in the story of Jesus’ youth? For this reason, 
and for this reason only: that the defenders of the theory of 
evolution wish to have it so, and must’ have it so. If the 
Messianic consciousness of Jesus has not been developed step 
by step from his consciousness of sonship, then the entire 


1 Leben Jesu, 76. 


230 Christ and the Critics 


fourdlation would be completely taken away from the evolu- 
tion: ry thesis in regard to Jesus. This calamity must, there- 
fore, be prevented at all hazards, even at the cost of all 
psychology and all genuine history. 

The third assertion of the development of the consciousness 
of sonship in the child Jesus is to be attributed finally to the 
same theoretical evolutionary hobby. Ostensibly, according 
to the modern school, the consciousness of sonship developed, 
in accordance with psychological necessity, from the tempera- 
ment and education of the child of Nazareth. Now it is, of 
course, certainly true and evident that Jesus grew up and was 
ecucated amid God-fearing associates and in the atmosphere 
of the Holy Scriptures, like all pious Jews. But how was it 
that precisely Jesus, and he alone, in distinction from all his 
youthful contemporaries, educated in the same way, found in 
this education and environment the proper soil to nourish his 
consciousness of sonship? That is the mystery. Why did 
such an ordinary and universal cause have in him, and in him 
only, such an extraordinary and unique result? 

Modern criticism replies: ‘‘ Because that cause met in him 
an absolutely unique temperament, inclined to recognize pro- 
foundly the fatherhood of God and to experience the truth of 
it spiritually.”” The existence of such a temperament can be 
at once conceded. Yet thereby the question recurs with double 
forse: How could Jesus in his earliest years, and almost in 
the cradle (for the psychological process is supposed to have 
ended with twelve years), how could he, at an age which ante- 
dates all serious contemplation and experience, have attained 
to such extraordinary, unheard-of and unique knowledge and 
experience concerning his filial relation to God? Every 
attempt to solve this psychological problem must be con- 
demned in advance as nonsensical and as doing violence to 
normal human intelligence. 

Yet, apart from this, our opponents’ attempt to reconstruct 
psychologically the beginnings of Jesus’ consciousness of 
being the Son of God could be taken seriously only under the 
presupposition that we possess no historical information about 
those beginnings. But this presupposition does not corre- 
spond to the facts. The evidence of Jesus’ consciousness of 
being the Son of God, in Part III of this volume, will show 
that the Saviour gave very definite information on this suh- 
ject, and that his estimate of himself contradicts the fantastic 
views of modern investigators. 

Among these, some of decidedly liberal tendencies have 
also this impression. Gustav Dalman acknowledges that the 
utterances of Jesus concerning his filial relation to God ‘‘ sound 
as if Jesus had never known any.beginning of it. It appears 
to form naturally a part of his personality that he, in distinc- 
tion from all others, expects to acquire the domination of the 





Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 231 


world, and possesses an immediate knowledge of God, just as 
a son by the right of birth becomes an heir, and by growing 
up in close intimacy with his father from childhood comes 
into a spiritual relation to his father peculiar to a child.’’} 
Wendt says still more decidedly: “‘On the ground of the 
religious self-consciousness in accordance with which Jesus 
subsequently judged and acted, we are justified in assuming 
that, so far back as his consciousness extended, he had always 
felt like a son towards God. . . . From the very outset he 
lived in the consciousness as well as in the condition of divine 
sonship.’’? 


V.—ORIGIN OF THE MESSIANIC CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST 
IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS NATURE. 


After these explanations, no further proof is really needed 
of the fact that the consciousness of divine sonship and the 
consciousness of Messiahship were naturally present in Jesus 
from the beginning, or, in other words, that they coincided 
with his consciousness of his own being and personality. 

As we have thus far sufficiently seen, all attempts to repre- 
sent them as the result of a gradual evolution break down 
completely. The rationalistic and rationalizing school of 
research has made every effort to prove the beginnings and 
development of the Messianic consciousness in the youth, 
baptism, temptation and separate stages of the public life of 
Jesus. And yet the result is always the same. When one 
thinks one has discovered a further development or even the 
beginning of this consciousness, or finally even a preparation 
for it, every time, by a more careful investigation, there gushes 
forth the full, clear spring of the Saviour’s perfect, complete 
conviction of his Messianic work and vocation. The Messianic 
consciousness of Jesus is and remains a mystery, before which 
all evolutionary attempts to explain it prove worthless. 

Willingly or unwillingly, the modern critics must themselves 
confess this, since they have in vain strained every nerve to 
support their theories. H. J. Holtzmann brings against these 
critics the reproach of having “ recently given to research into 
the life of Jesus the reputation of a being psychologically dis- 
posed to a game of riddles and to an uncertain groping about 
among odd fancies and suppositions.’’* Deissmann thinks that 
‘““ history has modestly and wisely let the natal hours of Jesus’ 
self-consciousness remain for us a mystery.’’* Harnack adds: 
“How he came to the consciousness of the unique character 
of his filial relation, and how he arrived at the consciousness 
of his power and of the obligation and, the task which were 

I 


1 Die Worte Jesu, i, 233. 2 Die Lehre Jesu, 93 f., 2nd ed. 

8 Das Messianische Bewusstsein Jesu, 42 f. (Tiibingen, 1907). 

4 Evangelium und Urchristentum, in Bettrage zur Wetterentwick- 
lung der christlichen Religion, 30h, 


232 Christ and the Critics 


involved in it, that is his secret; no psychology will discover 
it. . . . How Jesus came to the consciousness that he was 
the Messiah we are unable to ascertain.’’+ “All that the 
critics have said on this point,” remarks Albrecht Schweitzer, 
‘‘rests plainly on experiments.”? Still more clearly Paul 
Wernle, writes: “It is only honourable to confess that this 
origin (of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus) is for us a 
mystery, and that we know nothing about it. We can at 
most say how the Messianic consciousness did not originate 
in Jesus. Not through gradual reasoning and reflection ; these 
never give certainty. From them may come, perhaps, the self- 
consciousness of a clever theologian, but not that of the Son 
of God. Not through the influence of his environment; the 
voices of demons and of the world might have been able to 
make his spirit falter, but never to impart to it divine cer- 
tainty. Both explanations break down before the fact that from 
the very beginning Jesus appears with perfect steadfastness 
and unshakable certainty as the ambassador of God. Nowhere 
is there a trace of hesitation, doubt, or a development from 
presentiment to certainty. . . . Heacts all his life under thé 
pressure of necessity. He knows that he is sent and impelled 
by God; he has only the choice whether to obey or not.’’? In 
regard to this, Wernle expresses a further thought, which, 
considered in itself, confirms the idea that the Messianic con- 
sciousness of Jesus did not originate either earlier or later, 
but was inherent in his nature. The Messianic consciousness 
bears throughout the characteristics of his nature. Self-con- 
sciousness and Messianic consciousness are in Jesus one and 
the same thing, equally deep, equally certain, equally stead- 
fast, equally unchangeable, equally natural, as only an innate, 
never an acquired, consciousness can be. 

From this impression also rationalistic scholars cannot 
escape. Renan has already called attention to the fact that 
“the first thought of Jesus—the thought that he is the Son of 
God, the trusted agent of his Father, and the executor of his 
will—was so deeply implanted within him that this conviction 
probably did not originate gradually, but went back to the 
very roots of his being.’’* The Messianic consciousness of 
Jesus is indicated, in the opinion of Loisy, by “a splendid 
certainty of his faith,’’® and is distinguishable as a “simple 
and profound intuition.” Deissmann says: ‘‘ The Messianic 
certainty of Jesus is his self-consciousness.”® Harnack adds: 
“In him everything streams forth as a matter of course and 
as if it could not be otherwise. Thus does a fountain come 
from the depths of the earth, clear and unimpeded.’’” 


Wesen des Christentums, 81, 88. 2 Von Retmarus zu Wrede, 7. 
Die Anfainge unserer Religion, 31, 2nd ed. 4 Vite de Jésus, 85. 
Revue @histoire et de littérature religieuse, 91 (1904) 

Evangelium und Urchristentum, op. ctt., 106. 

Wesen des Christentums, 21. 


3D 6 





Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 233 


Ernst Kiihl expresses the same thought thus: ‘“ We no- 
where come upon an act of Jesus which gives us any informa- 
tion about the origin or development of his self-consciousness. 
We find everywhere the same calm, steadfast opinion regarding 
himself, and we receive everywhere the same clear, uniform 
and complete impression of his personality. . . . In any case, 
this much is certain, that one can judge fairly of the peculiar 
nature of Christ’s consciousness of his divine sonship,! with 
its serene clearness and its equable certainty in all the situa- 
tions of his life, only if one recognizes without any mental 
reservation or restriction the fact that its ultimate roots lie in 
the depths of his own nature, out of which it has grown 
organically, and, if we may say so, by a spiritual natural 
necessity.”” ‘‘ If Jesus found the Messiah in his own person, 
he followed only a spiritual necessity of his being.’ 

We may go still further and say that Jesus was positively 
aware that he was both the Son of God and the Messiah, not 
only after the commencement of his earthly human life, but 
that he was convinced that his divine sonship and Messiah- 
ship, like his nature, had their roots in the supernatural world 
and in eternity. He claims not only to have been chosen from 
all eternity to be the Son of God and the Messiah by a call 
from heaven, but to have himself come from heaven into this 
world as the Messiah. 

For the explanation of this statement we refer to the 
thorough demonstration of his supernatural pre-existence, 
which will soon follow. We can the more readily relieve 
ourselves of the trouble of proving it here in relation to his 
Messianic consciousness, as our opponents must agree with us 
on this point also. Jiilicher says : ‘‘ The Evangelist who makes 
Jesus declare that no man knoweth the Son but the Father, 
and, on the other hand, that no man knoweth the Father but 
the Son, presupposes in him also a consciousness which 
originated from another world and era.”* Gustav Dalman, 
by a philological estimate of the utterances of Jesus, comes 
to the conviction that he derives his Messianic consciousness 
from his supernatural divine sonship: “ For one who reads 
the words of Jesus without dogmatic prejudices, no other 
meaning can be found than that the Messiah is in reality the 
Son of one higher than David—namely, God.”*® B. Weiss 
holds a similar opinion: ‘‘ However far Jesus looked back 
into his past life, he knew of no moment when the love of God 
had been bestowed upon him, and when God’s selection of 
him had become an historical fact; he was conscious of 


1 What is true of the consciousness of his divine Sonship is, according 
to our explanation, true also of his Messianic consciousness, since both 
blend in one. 

2 Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 38, 43. 

3H. J. Holtzmann, Das messtanische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 78. 

4 Jesus und Paulus, 31. OPMLILE YD 294. 


234 Christ and the Critics 


having possessed that love, ever since he had learned for 
the first time to look up to God, and in that love he knew that 
he had been chosen to be the Messiah. That, however, must 
have led Jesus of himself to the consciousness that he had 
possessed that love of God before his existence on earth 
began, and that his life, as well as his selection for his 
mission, had their origin in the depths of eternity.’’? 

In wonderful harmony with this stands the Gospel’s 
account of the childhood of Jesus, in which the Messiahship 
and divine sonship are attributed to a supernatural origin, 
birth and nature. 

The angel Gabriel already brings from heaven the announce- 
ment of the coming forerunner (Luke i, 5). The latter is 
called John (Jochanan), which means “ From the grace of 
Jehovah,’’ because with him the Messianic day of salvation 
dawns, and because he will prepare his people for the coming 
of the Messiah. On that account the angel prophecies to 
Zachary : “ Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall 
rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the 
Lord . . . and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even 
from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the 
children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go 
before him (before the Messiah, the Lord) in the spirit and 
power of Elias, that he may turn the hearts of the fathers 
unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the 
just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people’’ (Luke 
i, 13-18). 

Six months later the same angel Gabriel announces to the 
Virgin Mary the supernatural conception and birth of the 
Messiah and Son of God himself: “ Behold thou shalt conceive 
in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call 
his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the 
Son of the Most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him 
the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house 
of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no 
end. . .. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the 
power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore 
also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the 
Son of God’’ (Luke i, 31-35). Joseph, the bridegroom of 
Mary, is also then informed, through the apparition of an 
angel, of the divinely supernatural conception of the Messiah 
in the Virgin’s womb: ‘“ Joseph, son of David, fear not to 
take unto thee Mary, thy wife, for that which is conceived in 
her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, 
and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people 
from their sins’’ (Matt. 1, 20, 21). 

And again it is an angel who announces to the shepherds 
near Bethlehem the birth of the Messiah Jesus with the words: 


1 Das Leben Jesu, ath ed., i, 283. 


Origin of Christ’s Messtanic Consctousness 235 


“Fear not, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, 
that shall be to all the people. For this day is born to you a 
Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David... . 
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the 
heavenly army, praising God and saying : Glory to God in the 
highest; and on earth peace to men of good will’’ (Luke 
li, 8-14). 

In the succeeding account of the child in the temple, Jesus 
is likewise hailed as the Messiah by the aged Simeon, “a just 
and devout man, waiting for the consolation of Israel,’’ and 
who “had received an answer from the Holy Ghost that he 
should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the 
Lord’ (Luke ui, 25, 26). Now, “when his parents brought 
in the child Jesus . . . he also took him into his arms, and 
blessed God and said : Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O 
Lord, according to thy word in peace. Because my eyes have 
seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face 
of all peoples, a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the 
glory of thy people Israel’’ (Luke 11, 27-32). 

As is well known, all the liberal critics are exceedingly 
hostile to this wonderful garland of supernatural testimonials 
which, according to the Gospel account of Christ’s childhood, 
enwreathes the announcement, the conception and the birth of 
the Messiah Jesus. They contest in particular the supposition 
that Jesus, as the Messiah and Son of God, was pre-existent 
and supernatural and supermundane in origin, nature and 
vocation. As has been already said, we shall discuss this 
criticism of the Gospel’s representation of Christ’s childhood 
at a later point, when we consider the divine consciousness 
of Jesus, because we can then first fully estimate the whole 
profound import of those passages in the Gospels of Matthew 
and Luke. The rejection of the Gospel’s history of his child- 
hood is, from the philosophical and doctrinal standpoint of 
rationalism and liberalism, a cardinal principle of self-defence 
and self-preservation, however unhistorical and unjustifiable 
such a procedure is. Any school of sceptical criticism which 
would accept the Gospel’s account of Christ’s childhood, and 
therewith the supernatural, supermundane origin of the con- 
sciousness of Jesus, would stultify itself. 

Only—and this is the curse of the whole system—this same 
school of sceptical criticism is none the less compelled to sur- 
render its position if it rejects the supernatural interpretation 
of the consciousness of Jesus. For, as we have proved after 
a serious examination of all the attempts of our opponents to 
solve the question, and as many of our opponents have them- 
selves had to confess, there is no natural explanation of this 
consciousness. Jesus claims that he did not gain his convic- 
tion that he was the Messiah and the Son of God by a gradual 
evolution of his spiritual nature, and all the problems and 


236 Christ and the Critics 


hypotheses by which it is nevertheless asserted that this con- 
sciousness of his has been proved to be the result of a slow 
development and evolution have broken down lamentably. 
Thus the modern school of research into the life of Jesus 
is compelled either to believe in that evolution of Jesus 
against the evidence of all the historical and psychological 
facts, or else to doubt its own system. 

There is only one way out of this dilemma—namely, that of 
attributing the Messianic and divinely filial consciousness of 
Jesus to an ecstatic, visionary or absolutely deranged mental 
condition of the Saviour; in other words, by claiming that 
Jesus, in a state of ecstatic excitement, gradually worked 
himself into those Messianic ideas, or in consequence of such 
mental crises believed in a supernatural Messianic vocation 
intended for himself from time immemorial. 

Since the days of Renan and Strauss this assertion has 
appeared repeatedly, down to the time of O. Holtzmann,* who 
speaks of a not irrational ecstasy of Jesus, and to Loosten? 
and Emil Rasmussen,*® who represent Jesus as insane and 
epileptic. Rasmussen, the barbarian from the Scandinavian 
north, declares that without exception all men who proclaim 
themselves prophets are deranged, and that the “ Messiahs ”’ 
are still worse; and finally, in speaking of Jesus’s Messianic 
consciousness, he is guilty of writing the following disgusting 
sentence: “‘ Just as the man who suffers from constant irrita- 
bility is a chronic grumbler, and as the man who cannot 
escape being pursued by megalomaniacal ideas suffers from 
megalomania, so a man who proclaims himself a Messiah or 
a prophetic figure, or that he possesses a Messianic nature—is 
also a deranged person.’ 

However monstrous such coarseness is, and however 
repellent we find every attempt to represent the Saviour as 
an exalté, ecstatic or epileptic, and however energetically 
many liberal investigators protest against it, the rationalistic 
school of criticism cannot deny its responsibility for such 
aberrations. O. Holtzmann is right, from a liberal stand- 
point, when he® asserts with Johannes Weiss :®° The Messianic 
consciousness of Jesus “would be wholly incomprehensible 
psychologically if it did not appear accompanied by religious 
ecstasy.’’ If Jesus, from a mere man with purely human 
consciousness, had developed into the Messiah, and had 
attained to the consciousness that he was an ambassador 
from God and the Son of God, more exalted than all the 
Prophets, and that he came from heaven and united in himself 
all power in heaven and earth, then he would have been not 

1 War Jesus Ekstatiker? (Tiibingen, 1903). 

2 Jesus Christus vom Standpunkte des Psychiaters (Bamberg, 190s). 

3 Jesus, eine vergletchende psychopatische Studie (Leipzig, 1905). 

SCS STR: Ria -:D, 10, 

6 Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 155. 


Origin of Christ’s Messianic Consciousness 237 


only an ecstatic visionary, but, in the full sense of the word, 
a madman, as the most radical critics maintain. 

This blasphemous assertion, which we shall refute in the 
second volume of our work, really condemns itself. ‘“ The 
facts contradict such a declaration,’’ we hear the Protestant 
liberal Stapfer reply to Renan.! Since sceptical criticism is 
forced again and again to fall back upon this historically 
untrue psychology of Jesus, it has lately once more demon- 
strated its inability to interpret the consciousness of the 
Saviour historically by the evolutionary theory. Moreover, it 
proves thereby that it is utterly impossible to judge of the 
Messiahship of Jesus scientifically and with fairness if he is 
regarded merely as a man. 

We come thus to the consideration of Jesus’ consciousness 
of his divinity. First, this will throw complete light upon his 
Messianic consciousness, for first and only from the stand- 
point of Christ’s divinity do we come to understand how the 
Saviour was able to apprehend from the very beginning his 
whole Messianic vocation and activity. And first and only on 
the ground of Christ’s divinity can the question be raised and 
answered whether and to what an extent his human knowledge 
concerning his Messiahship was capable of development and 
increase, in accordance with the words of the Evangelist : 
‘And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and grace with 
God and men” (Luke ij, 52). 


1 See p. 200 of this volume. 








oo Pep AR Th 


Peewee DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS, OF 
\ CHRIST 





239 ny 








CHAPTER I 
pie, DIVINITY: OF CHRIST IN HIS LIBE 


I1.—TuHe DiIviINE CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRIST AS A WHOLE. 


1. Friends and Enemies of the Divinity of Christ. 


HE question of the Messiahship of Jesus is imme- 

diately connected with that of his divinity. His 

Messiahship and divinity form, in fact, the two 

pivotal points of christology. Both are alike 

infinitely important and essential in the conflict 
raging about the incomparably sublime personality of our 
Saviour. Only we will go, wherever it is possible, still more 
deeply into this question of the divinity of Jesus—to the 
central point of it, that is, to the very heart of Christ and 
Christianity. Here also, therefore, we collide more violently 
than elsewhere with the two fundamentally different and con- 
flicting views concerning Christ—on the one hand, the positive 
Christianity of faith and the science of faith, and, on the other, 
the liberal pseudo-christianity of modern criticism. 

The true, essential divinity of Christ has always been, is 
now and will ever remain the ultimate criterion of christology, 
and this again the decisive characteristic of positive Chris- 
tianity. This is recognized, not only by Catholics and ortho- 
dox Protestant investigators, who still make a resolute stand! 
against a falling away in non-catholic Christendom from the 
belief in the only-begotten Son of God, but also by the most 
radical critics, who still have for Christ himself and Chris- 
tianity at most a smile of pity. 

Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the Unconscious, 
declares that Harnack’s attempt to understand the Essence 
of Christianity without Christ’s divinity and without Christ 
at all is a senseless comedy. He says: ‘‘ The essence of 


1 In recent times the divinity of Christ has been especially defended 
in orthodox circles by Johann Kunze, Die ewige Gottheit Jesu Christi 
(Leipzig, 1904); by Karl Miiller, Der Glaube an die Gottheit Christi, 
Biblische Zeitfragen, I1 Serie, i (Berlin, 1906); Johann Steinbeck, Das 
gottliche Selbstbewusstsein Jesu nach dem Zeugnis der Synopttker 
(Leipzig, 1908); F. Godet, Commentaire sur PEvangile de St Jean 
4th ed. (Neuchatel, 1904); and the English theologians G. B. Stevens, 
The Theology of the N. T. (1901), and The Teaching of Jesus (1902); 
R. L. Ottley, Doctrine of the Incarnation, in J. Hastings’s Dictionary 
of the Bible (Edinburgh, 1898-1904); W. Sanday, zd., see Jesus Christ; 
C. Fouard, The Christ, the Son of God (London, 1908); W. Hoyt, 
The Lord’s Teaching concerning his own Person (London, 1908); 
H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 
(London, 1908); W. M. Macgregor, Jesus Christ, the Son of Goa, 
3rd ed. (Edinburgh, 1909). 

a ZAI 16 


242 Christ and tbe Critics 


Christianity is contained in christology, or nowhere. Who- 
ever rejects christology rejects also the essence of Chris- 
tianity.’’? 

W. von Schnehen, although a pantheistic Monist, answers 
the question whether the liberal portrait of Jesus can be 
characterized at all as ‘“‘ Christian ’’ with an emphatic “ No,’’ 
and adds: “ Christianity is faith in Christ . . . the Saviour 
and the Son of God—that is, the Son of God and the Saviour 
in the true meaning of those words, and not in any modern- 
ized interpretation of them, which robs them of the religious 
characteristics of their old, unequivocal meaning, and substi- 
tutes for them a sort of general phraseology, which in reality 
says nothing. Ina word, Christianity is the religion of Christ, 
and is faith in redemption only through the true Son of God, 
Jesus Christ... . Traly one must either be blind, or have 
most peculiar and no longer practical but purely personal 
reasons, not to recognize in all this the ‘ Essence of Chris- 
tianity.’ For a millennium and a half it was certainly always 


understood so. The faith of Christians is faith in the divine ~ 


sonship and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. To-day, 
also, it is still the rule that the consciousness of the Christian 
Church reckons with this fact. ... Indeed, outside of 
Christendom one always understands by Christians those who 
believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and in this sense 
pray to him. The non-christian philosophy, in its most dis- 
tinguished representatives, agrees absolutely with the ortho- 
dox Churches in this view; the adherents of other religions, 
so far as they know anything at all of Christianity, are of the 
same opinion; and it has been reserved only for the liberal 
rationalistic theology of the last 150 years to invent for its 
own special need an entirely new ‘ Essence of Christianity.’ ’’? 

In the case of genuine rationalists, who will soon almost 
without exception belong to history, we do not find this 
strange, and just as little so in the case of the most modern 
radicals, who are becoming more and more the heirs of liberal 
Protestantism. Both frankly confess that they wish to be 
non-christians and to work as such, and to try, both in prin- 
ciple and in practice, to dechristianize Christianity. Truly 
the rationalists, from Reimarus to Strauss and Renan, when 
they contested revelation only, were still genuine dogmatists 
in comparison with the radicals of to-day—Eduard von Hart- 
mann, W. von Schnehen, Albrecht Kalthoff and others—who 
repudiate every objective idea of God and all real religion. 
But those, as well as these, acknowledge that their work is 
that of a destructive undermining of the foundations of 
Christianity. 

With the liberals it is quite different. They all assume the 





1 Die Gegenwart, 7, 210 (1901). 
2 Der moderne Jesuskultus, 7 f. 2nd ed. (Frankfurt. 1906), 


The Divinity of Christ in this Vite 243 


robe of Christian theologians, clothe their modern ideas and 
ideals in a Christian garb, and claim the honour of having 
unveiled to the world Christianity cleansed of all impurities, 
and of having portrayed it in its true “essence.’’ In reality, 
however, they throw away precisely what the whole world 
regards as the deepest and most spiritual import of the 
Christian religion, and, in particular, its soul—the divinity 
of Jesus. 

This reproach is applicable to all the liberal critics and 
accommodating theologians. All of them, from the extremest 
left to the furthest right wing of the school of Ritschl, deny, 
in the name of true Christianity, the divinity of Jesus Christ. 
This is, of course, comprehensible from the radical liberals, 
who at the present moment set the pace in the Protestant 
camp. Harnack has uttered for them the significant words : 
“Not the Son, but the Father only, has a place in the Gospel 
which Jesus proclaimed. The sentence, ‘I am the Son of 
God’ did not find its way from Jesus into his Gospel, and 
whoever inserts it there, as a sentence in connection with 
others, adds something to the Gospel. But whoever takes up 
this Gospel and strives to know him who gave it to us will 
testify that here divinity has appeared in as pure a form as it 
ever can upon this earth.’’! 

Only in appearance do the more conservative members of 
the Ritschl school reject this formula of Harnack. They talk 
much of the divinity of Christ and are able on occasion to 
grow quite eloquent in favour of it. But Albrecht Ritschl 
himself did not at all understand by this the eternal and 
essential divinity of the Saviour. His Son of God is a creature 
with limited powers, not essentially different from us Chris- 
tians. “In the affirmation of his divinity the religious valua- 
tion of Christ finds only a very limited expression.’’? Christ 
is called God only in so far as he is historically the first in the 
community of the kingdom of God, and thereby unique of his 
kind. 

It is true Julius Kaftan remarks very positively, ‘‘ So long 
as a Christology exists it will be the doctrine of the divinity 
of the Redeemer”; yet Kaftan makes the divinity of Jesus 
resolve itself into a natural endowment, by means of which 
the Saviour came into such a perfect spiritual unity and com- 
munion with God as no other human being ever experienced.* 
Beyschlag speaks in a precisely similar way of the “ unique 
majesty of Jesus, for which, in the last analysis, the erroneous 
yet authorized name of divinity is not too high.’’° Lipsius 


1 Wesen des Christentums, Q1, 92. 

2 Ritschl, Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versdhnung, iti, 389, 
eed veri: 

Reid. 425 f., 438. 4 Julius Kaftan, Dogmattk, 424 f., 437 (1897). 

5 Neutestamentliche Theologie,i, 77, 2nd ed. 


244 Christ and the Critics 


and Nitzsch dispute this, remarking that one may indeed speak 
of a “unique existence of God in Christ,’’ although the 
affirmation of the divinity of Christ “is inexact and not 
without error.’’? 

Even Bernhard Weiss, who is looked upon as a kind of 
intermediary between the liberal and positive schools of 
thought, explains away the metaphysical consubstantiality of 
Jesus with the Father into a merely moral similarity of nature, 
by means of which he, above all other men, is qualified to 
bring the highest revelation of God to mankind.” 

If the theology of the Ritsch] school ever concedes the 
divinity of Jesus, it conceives it, at most, in the sense of the 
old monarchical theory, according to which the man Jesus 
became God only in time and by means of his Messianic 
vocation. ‘‘ Christ is fof us God. Jesus has become God by 
becoming Christ,’’ writes Schulz ;* and Reinhold Seeberg, in 
closest adhesion to Schleiermacher, declares: ‘‘The will of 
God, conducting the history of humanity to salvation... 
united itself with the man Jesus from the first moment of his 
existence . . . and permeated his feelings, thoughts and will. 
Thus did the man Jesus become the Son of God.’’* 

If the essential and eternal divinity of Jesus is even seriously 
considered, Julius Kaftan® and other enemies of the left wing 
of liberal theology do not think thereby of the divinity of 
Jesus himself, but of the divinity of the Father standing 
behind him. With this Harnack also can, of course, agree. 
He wishes to substitute for the expression ‘“ Christ is God”’ 
the formula ‘‘ God was in Christ.’’® In some such way every 
critic finally succeeds in acknowledging a divinity of Christ 
and at the same time in denying the divinity of Christ. 
Edmund Stapfer even calls Protestantism fortunate on account 
of this confusion: “I am convinced that this individualism is 
to-day the wisest and the only possible thing for us. Every 
Protestant believer manufactures his own christology for 
himself, because every believer conceives of the divinity of 
Jesus Christ in his own way, which is not the way of his 
neighbour.’’? 

The Modernists, who have abandoned Catholicism, es- 
pecially Alfred Loisy,® agree with this entirely. 


1 Lipsius, The Theology of Ritschl, 9; Nitzsch, Lehrbuch der Dog- 
matik, 497, 2nd ed. 

2 Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie des N. T., 58 ff., 6th ed. (Berlin, 
1895); Leben Jesu, li, 145 f. (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1902). 

3 Die Gottheit Christt, 725 f. 

4 Grundwahrheiten der christlichen Religion, 115 ff.; Die Kirche 
Deutschlands tm 19 Jahrhundert, 47. 

5 id., 438. 6 Preussische Jahrbicher, i, 588 (1903). 

? La mort et la résurrection de Jésus-Christ, 340; Jésus-Christ pen- 
dant son ministére, 314. 

8 See the good delineation of him by Lepin, /ésus, Messie et Fils de 
Dieu, 238-267 (Paris, 1906): La Divinité du Christ d’aprés M. Lotsy. 


The Divinity of Christ tn his Lite 245 


All the modern enemies of the divinity of Jesus are united 
only in the main point of view that Jesus Christ himself did 
not claim to be God. Nowhere and never in his life, they say, 
did he utter a word indicating a really divine consciousness. 
Only after his death did the doctrine of his divinity gradually 
originate in the Christian Church, although in no way based 
upon the teaching of Christ himself. Let us examine these 
assertions. 


2. The Human and Divine Consciousness of Christ. 


The enemies of the divinity of Jesus will, in advance, have 
nothing to do with the orthodox Christian position. Instead 
of investigating the Christian point of view, according to 
which Jesus professed and proclaimed himself to be God, they 
oppose to it at once the negative antithesis ‘that Jesus him- 
self did not claim to be God on earth . . . and that he bluntly 
declined the attribute of divinity and divine perfection.’’* In 
proof of this they appeal merely to the fact that he emphasized 
his human consciousness with great clearness as compared 
with his divine consciousness. Renan asserts that ‘ Jesus 
does not for a single moment express the sacrilegious idea 
that he is God.’’ ‘It is beyond all doubt that Jesus never 
thought of professing to be an incarnation of God himself. 
. There is not a trace of such a thing anywhere in the 
synoptic Gospels. The Evangelists make him act merely as 
aman. He is tempted; he is ignorant of many things; he 
corrects himself; he changes his views; he begs his Father 
to spare him trials; he is submissive to God as a son. He, 
who is to judge the world, does not even know the day of the 
judgement. He takes precautionary measures for his safety. 
Shortly after his birth he has to be saved by flight, to rescue 
him from men who wished to kill him. . . . All this proves 
the fact that he was only an ambassador from God, a man 
protected and privileged by God.’ 

The liberal criticism of to-day has remained true to Renan 
on this point. Some of Harnack’s sentences scund very 
much like those of Renan: ‘‘ He [Jesus] characterized the 
Lord of heaven and earth as his God and Father, as greater 
than he, and as the only one who is good. He is certain of 
having from this Father all that he has, and all that he is to 
accomplish. He prays to him, he submits to his will; and 
in an intense struggle he seeks to discover this and to fulfil it. 
His aim, strength, insight, success and his hard necessity, all 
come from this Father. So it stands recorded in the Gospels; 
and there is nothing there which can be altered or falsely 
interpreted. This personality that feels, prays, acts, struggles 


1 Arnold Meyer, Was uns Jesus heute ist, 21 (Tubingen, 1907). 
2 Renan, Vie de Jésus, 54, 173, 179 f. (Berlin, 1863). 


4 


246 Christ and the Critics 


and leads is a man, who unites himself with other men also in 
relation to God.’’! 

Many others speak in essentially the same way, among 
whom (to mention only a few) are Wellhausen,? W. Bousset,* 
H. J. Holtzmann,* Chamberlain,® Paul Wernle,® Zimmer- 
mann,’ K. Thieme,® and Alfred Loisy,’® the latest mouthpiece 
of the Liberal school. 

It cannot occur to us to deny that Jesus, before everything 
else, felt and showed himself as man, and that his human 
consciousness expressed itself in his life with plastic force 
and fulness. First his humanity in its entire reality, then 
his divinity in its spiritual fulness of truth; first the humanly 
comprehensible, then the divinely supernatural, which 
becomes known through and in the human nature of Jesus. 
It is for this reason that. Jesus comes into this world as an 
infant in a manger, flees from his persecutors, and grows in 
age, wisdom and grace in the sight of God and men (Luke ii, 
40, 50 f.). It is for this reason that at the beginning of his 
public life he submits like an ordinary sinner to the baptism 
of repentance, with the remark that he must fulfil all justice 
(Matt. iii, 15). For this reason he is led by the Spirit into 
the wilderness, where he fasts, is tempted and shows that he 
is hungry (Matt. iv, 2 and Luke iv, 2). On this account he 
endures all the days of his activity the human weaknesses of 
hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleep and other human afflictions. For 
this reason also he is moved by all the varieties of feelings 
known to the human soul—sympathy, tenderness, friendship, 
pain, grief and tears. He feels drawn to the young man 
who asks of him the way of life (Mark x, 21). He is moved 
by compassion for the widow whose only son is being carried 
forth upon a bier (Luke vii, 13). He has compassion on the 
multitude which has remained with him for three days, and 
suffers hunger in the desert (Matt. xiv, 14 and parallels). He 
groans in spirit, shudders and weeps at the death of his 
friend Lazarus (John xi, 33, 35), and sheds tears over obdurate 
Jerusalem at the thought of its ruin (Luke xix, 41). In the 
garden of Gethsemani an indescribable sadness overpowers 
him in view of his approaching end; his soul is sorrowful 
even unto death; he falls in agony, and drops of sweat exude 


1 Wesen des Christentums, 8o. 

2 Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi, 188 (Berlin, 1899). 

3 Das Wesen der Religion dargestellt an threr Geschichte, 251 (Halle, 
1903). 4 Neutest, Theologie, i, 268 (Leipzig, 1897). 

5 Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhunderts, i, 209, 3rd ed. (Mtinchen, 1901). 

6 Die Anfange unserer Religion, 26-37, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1904). 

? Der historische Wert der dltesten Ueberlieferung von der Geschichte 
Jesu im Markusevangelium, 144 (Leipzig, 1905). 

8 Die christliche Demut, 1, 131, 170 ff. (Giessen, 1906). 

9 Autour dun petit livre, 116; Stmples réflexions, 72 (1908); Quelgues 
lettres sur des questions actuelles, 148 (1908) ; Les Evangziles synoptiques, 


1; 193. 


& 


Che Divinity of Christ in this Lite 247 


from all the pores of his body (Matt. xxvi, 37 and parallels). 
He is, indeed, willing to die the most frightful of deaths and 
to be buried in a rock-hewn tomb in order to complete the 
tragedy of his human life. Even after his resurrection his 
paramount desire is to furnish irrefutable evidence of the fact — 
that he has risen from the grave as a living human being. 
The disciples at Emmaus recognize him in the breaking of 
bread (Luke xxiv, 30). To the astonished Apostles he shows 
his perforated hands and feet for them to handle, and he 
eats with them honey and fish (Luke xxiv, 39-43). Thus 
Jesus, from the first to the last hour of his life, stands as 
a true and perfectly human man among men. 

Just as plainly does he show himself as man in his inter- 
course with God. In his will (Matt. xxvi, 39), in his words 
(John viii, 28, 38), and his work (John v, 19), and in his 
moral (Matt. xix, 16) and intellectual (Matt. xxiv, 36) per- 
fection, he subordinates himself to his Father in heaven 
as every creature ought to subordinate itself to him. The 
glorification which comes to him in such abundance from his 
miracles he wishes to transmit to the Father (Mark v, 19), as 
he seeks, indeed, in everything to enhance the honour of the 
Father (John viii, 49; xiv, 13). Like an ordinary mortal, he 
turns to God the Father partly in order to pay him the tribute 
of adoration, partly to beg for his help and support. The 
Evangelists mention repeatedly his ardour in prayer (Matt. 
xiv, 23; Luke ix, 18, 28). He passes whole nights in prayer 
(Luke vi, 12). He can ask of his Father to send him more 
than twelve legions of angels for his defence (Matt. xxvi, 53). 
Also in working his miracles he often first raises his eyes to 
heaven in prayer before he acts (Mark vii, 34; John xi, 38, 41). 
In his prayer on the Mount of Olives he expresses the 
sharpest distinction between his human will, which shrinks 
from suffering, and the paternal will of God, to which he 
submits in profound obedience (Matt. xxvi, 39 and parallels). 
In his last agony on the Cross he finally feels himself for- 
saken by God his Father, and, dying, commends his spirit 
into his hands (Matt. xxvii, 46 and parallels). 

Thus does Jesus Christ reveal himself as man in every 
respect and in all the situations of his life. In his body and 
soul, in his will, intellect and actions he is a man like us 
other men, “in all things made like unto his brethren, yet 
without sin ’’ (Heb. ii, 17; iv, 15). In fact, his human nature 
appears in the self-consciousness of Jesus and in the repre- 
sentation of that consciousness in the writings of the Evan- 
gelists in such perfect naturalness, that we must see therein 
a new, transparently clear proof of the fact that here every- 
thing is described in accordance with reality; not, as the 
liberals believe, in the twilight of history, already refashioned 
by faith. 


248 Christ and the Critics 


But—and this is the question which we have to do with 
here—can liberal criticism legitimately draw the conclusion 
from the fact that Jesus shows himself so decidedly as man 
that he did not claim to be also God? Certainly not. Whether 
Christ was God or not, the human side of his nature and 
person would have had to come to expression in any case just 
as decidedly. Not only because Christ was also a real man, 
but also because, his divinity being presupposed, his divine 
nature could reveal itself only in his human nature and by 
means of his human nature, because he was God-Man—uincar- 
nate God. 

An incarnate God thinks, wills, speaks and acts as man, 
even when his thinking, willing, speaking and acting cannot 
be explained merely from his humanity, but have their origin 
in the depths of divinity... A man who, casting aside at once 
the capacities, talents, forces and manners peculiar to his 
race, should appear before us with a claim to be God, would 
thereby also give us a proof that he understood the part he 
was playing very superficially and that he was nothing but a 
comedian, a Deus ex machind. The incarnate Son of God, 
whether he presented himself to his fellow-men or to God, 
remained the Son of Man, even when he gave proof of his 
pre-existence with the Father, of his supernatural nature, his 
likeness to God and his divinity in word and work. So it 
becomes at once comprehensible that he had not only to 
evince a decidedly human consciousness, but also to show that 
this human consciousness revealed itself with much greater 
clearness and publicity than the consciousness of his divine 
nature and being, and why. Not only the theological, but 
also the purely psychological estimate of the person of Christ 
forbid the tdea of his playing off his clearly marked human 
consciousness against his divine consciousness. ‘“ Monsieur 
Renan, that clown in psychology,’’ as Friedrich Nietzsche once 
called him, enticed subsequent liberal critics, in this respect, 
into a very dubious path. 

Even the few texts which apparently favour our opponents’ 
conception of the consciousness of Jesus, and to which they 
always again and again appeal with tenacious narrow-minded- 
ness, do not alter these facts. 

Above all, the meeting of Jesus with the rich young man is 
supposed to be decisive (Mark x, 17; Luke xviii, 18). “‘ When 
the rich young man addressed him with the words, ‘ Good 
Master,’ Jesus answered, ‘ Why callest thou me good? None 
is good but one, that is God.’ He has with these words dis- 
avowed bluntly divinity and divine perfection.’’ Thus does 
Arnold Mever! decide, according to Harnack’s statement.? 
Alfred Loisy* also, W. Bousset,* and even the orthodox- 


1 Was uns Jesus heute ist, 21 (Tiibingen, 1907). 
2 Wesen, 8o. 3 Autour dun petit livre, 148. 
4 Das Wesen der Religion, 251; Jesus, g2, 3rd ed. (Tiibingen, 1907). 





The Divinity of Christ in his Life 249 


inclined Ernst Kiih!! hold the same opinion—incorrectly. In 
the eyes of the rich young man Jesus was precisely not God, 
but merely a wise Rabbi, exactly as he is in the eyes of our 
rationalists and modernists. That being presupposed, it was 
typical both of the nature and of the deep humility of Jesus 
to give to God alone the honour by declining this expression 
of human praise. 

Moreover, Jesus, who saw in the form of address given 
him by the young man merely a vain compliment, greatly 
coveted by the Pharisees (Matt. xxili, 7), ‘‘ rejects this 
ambitious and superficial habit of bestowing titles, without 
giving a thought to the question, whether he has a right to 
the appellation ‘good’ or not. The rejection of that dis- 
tinction has, therefore, nothing to do with the self-conscious- 
ness of Jesus, but is a revelation of feeling, from which one 
perceives how far removed he is from the Scribes and 
Pharisees.’’? Provided the expression does not contain the 
praise of men, but a worthy recognition of God, Jesus lays 
a definite claim to the name of “ Lord and Master’’ (John 
xiii, 13), and wishes to have it used in the sense of a good 
and absolutely perfect Master, in which sense God in heaven 
is called Father and Lord of all men (Matt. xxiii, 8, 9). 

Furthermore, our opponents take refuge in the remark of 
Christ concerning the coming of the day of judgement: “ But 
of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in 
heaven, nor the Son, but the Father’’ (Mark xiii, 32). Here 
is clearly and distinctly expressed the underlying thought 
which Jesus wishes to impress upon his hearers—God alone 
knows the day of the Last Judgement. No creature, even 
though it is one possessing pure intelligence, has knowledge 
of it. Even to the Son this secret is not made known, in so 
far as he speaks merely from his own knowledge as a creature. 
In so far as his humanity is connected hypostatically with his 
divinity, and, above all, in regard to his divinity itself, he 
also certainly knows this secret. But neither as man, nor as 
God, does he know this for men. He has no commission 
from the Father to communicate it to mortals. For, as he 
explains elsewhere, “It is not for you to know the times or 
moments which the Father hath put in his own power”’ 
(Acts i, 7). 

Finally, the complaint of the dying Saviour on the cross: 
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’’ (Matt. 
xxvii, 46). He who in his greatest agony breaks out in this 
cry of distress is the Son of God, hypostatically united with 
the human nature, which is struggling with death. It is, 


1 Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 12-16 (Gr.-Lichterfelde, Berlin, 1907). 

2 Johann Steinbeck, Das géttliche Selbstbewusstsein Jesu nach dem 
Zeugnis der Synoptiker, 39 f. (Leipzig, 1908); R. A. Hoffmann, Das 
Selbstbewusstsein Jesu nach den dret ersten Evangelien, 6 {.(Kénigs- 
berg i. Pr., 1904). 


250 Christ and the Critics 


therefore, the man who feels himself forsaken, and who can 
call God his God, and cry to him for help. The divinity of 
Jesus is in no way excluded by the fact that his humanity 
reaches here its highest, last and tragic expression. 

Accordingly, when the liberal critics, together with Har- 
nack, sum up the evidence against the divinity of Jesus in 
the words, “‘ This sensitive, active, struggling and suffering 
personality is a man who unites himself with other men in his 
attitude towards God,’’ they have thereby really proved 
nothing against the divinity of Jesus, but have only uttered 
the truth well known to every reader of the Gospel, that Jesus 
was truly and really man. Nevertheless, the question whether 
Jesus was also God is not settled thereby, but, on the con- 
trary, is now put forth for the first time. Now, first we must 
ask whether all the utterances and actions of Jesus can be 
explained by his human consciousness, or whether they, on 
the contrary, find their explanation only in the fact that his 
divine nature was united with his human nature in the one 
person of the incarnate God and the divine Messiah. 


3. The Expressions of the Divine Consciousness of Christ. 


In approaching the answer to this question, we abstain for 
the present from Christ’s express designation of himself as 
the Son of God, and take into consideration only the expres- 
sions of his divine consciousness in general. That this con- 
sciousness cannot be measured by the standard of ordinary 
men is recognized also by our critical opponents. Renan, 
the master of fine phrases, is forced to the acknowledgement : 
“The faith, the enthusiasm and the constancy of the first 
generation of Christians become comprehensible only by the 
fact that at the beginning of the whole movement was placed 
a man of colossal proportions. . .. This sublime person- 
ality, which even now, day after day, directs the destinies 
of the world, can permissibly be called divine, not in the 
sense that Jesus had absorbed into himself all that is divine, 
or that he was identical with the divine, but in the sense that 


Jesus is that individual who has brought his species nearest ~ 


to divinity. . . . The position which he ascribed to himself 
was that of a supernatural being, and he wished to be con- 
sidered as a being who stood in loftier relations with God 
than other men.’’? 

The most modern of the critics in the liberal camp share 
the views of this rationalist. Paul Wernle certainly speaks to 
them as if he had read their thoughts when he says : ‘“ Christi- 
anity originated from the circumstance that a layman, Jesus of 
Nazareth, appeared with a more than prophetic self-conscious- 
ness, and drew men so closely to himself that they were able, 


1 Renan, Vie de Jésus, 54, 319, 325 f. (Berlin, 1863). 


ee 


The Divinity of Christ in this Vite 251 


even after his ignominious death, to live and die for him. . . 
It is clear that from these words [of Jesus] there speaks a 
superhuman self-consciousness. And this is the secret of the 
origin of Christianity. . . . Always modest, humble, moder- 
ate, and yet with a superhuman self-consciousness. It is 
absolutely impossible to invent such a spiritual life as this. 
Revelation, redemption, forgiveness, help—all these he has 
in himself and imparts them to those who yield to the im- 
pression of his person. And just as his statements about 
himself far surpass the ordinary, so also does his manner 
of life. ... If he passes nights in solitary prayer, if in 
preaching and healing he forgets food and rest, if he inter- 
feres with nature, or if, himself moved by its mystery, he 
seems to his associates as a being from another world and 
to his puzzled relatives as one possessed of the devil—every- 
where we have the same impression of the superhuman.’’! 
P. W. Schmiedel confesses that “the synoptists also depict 
it (the portrait of Jesus) likewise with a sublimity, which 
exalts him appreciably above human standards.’’? 

Yet the same critics declare that Jesus does not claim to be 
a superhuman being, much less God. ‘“ He stands throughout 
as a man among men, with a feeling of the distance which 
separates all creatures from God.’’? “He does not surpass 
the limits of the purely human. Before his soul Almighty 
God remained in his entire sublimity, he did not force himself 
to a place beside him. ... He drew the dividing line 
sharply.’’* Everything extraordinary and superhuman in his 
words and works has its foundation in the Messianic con- 
sciousness of Jesus. In his nature he feels himself merely 
human, but in his Messianic vocation exalted above men. 
That is all. ‘The mediator is throughout a man, without 
exception, but he has received from God a special vocation 
and commission for men, and thereby he surpasses them.’’® 
Only that? Really no more than that? Let us briefly collect 
the most important expressions of self-consciousness of Jesus 
in order to enable ourselves to form an independent opinion in 
regard to them. 

Jesus makes plain to us his superhuman and absolutely 
divine consciousness by comparisons, in which he contrasts 
himself, on the one hand, with the created world, and, on the 
other, unites himself closely with God. 

In all his humility and modesty he yet knows himself to be 
exalted above all creatures. He is greater than Jonah and 


1 Paul Wernle, Die Anfange unserer Religion, 26-29, 2nd ed. (Tiibin- 
gen, 1904); E. Stapfer, /ésus-Christ pendant son mintstére, 324, 337; 
2nd ed. (Paris, 1897); Fritz Barth, Die Haupiprobleme des Lebens 
Jesu, 256 ff., 3rd ed. (Giitersloh, 1907); W. Bousset, Jesus, go f., 3rd 
ed. (Tiibingen, 1907). 

2 Das vierte Evangelium, 19 (Ttbingen, 1906). 

3 Wernle, op. cit., 28. 

4 Bousset, of. cit., gt. Wernle, of. czt., 28. 


252 Christ and the Critics 


Solomon (Matt.. xii, 41); greater than Moses and Elias, the 
witnesses of his glorification (Matt. xvii, 3); greater than all 
the ambassadors of God in the Old Testament (Matt. xii, 41). 
In him his disciples behold what prophets and kings had in 
vain longed to see (Luke x, 24). The least in his kingdom is 
greater than John the Baptist, who, nevertheless, was more 
than all the prophets, yes, the greatest of all men born until 
that time (Matt. xi, 9-11). David himself, whose son the 
Messiah was to be, looks up like a servant to Jesus his Lord 
(Matt. xxii, 43-45). No man and no angel can stand com- 
parison with him. He is served by angels (Matt. iv, 11); a 
word from him would be sufficient for the Father in heaven 
to send him twelve legions of angels (Matt. xxvi, 53). The 
angels are, in general, as much his as are the angels and 
servants of the Father (Matt. xili, 41; xvi, 27). At the last 
day they will form his retinue of honour, like the household 
of a king (Matt. xvi, 27; xxv, 31). At a wave of his hand 
they will assemble the whole world before his face (Matt. 
Xill, 41; xxiv, 31). He is something different from men and 
angels. Exalted above both, he takes a rank and position 
close to the heavenly Father (Mark xiii, 32). He admonishes 
the disciples forcibly that they should call no one on earth 
Master or Father: “For one is your Father, who is in 
heaven; . . . one is your Master, Christ . . . and all you 
are brethren ’’ (Matt. xxiii, 8, 9). Jesus conceives of the two 
designations, Father and Master, as parallel; applies one to 
himself, the other to the Father in heaven; and contrasts with 
both the men who, while different from Christ and the Father, 
are among themselves brethren. 

If these comparisons between Jesus and the created world 
already point, not only to a superhuman vocation, but to a 
nature in the Saviour which is throughout superior to that of 
created beings, still more definite are those utterances tn 
which he compares himself directly with God. With mar- 
vellous educative wisdom he starts out with the Old Testa- 
ment idea of God and the Old Testament’s divine revelation, 
because these were intelligible to the disciples and known by 
all. He places himself on a par with God, and applies the 
utterances concerning Jehovah to himself. As Jehovah alone 
is Israel’s Lord to whom the nation is wedded, so Jesus is 
the bridegroom of his followers (Mark ii, 19; John iii, 29), 
and not merely the groomsman who is to lead the people to 
God. While the Old Testament never speaks of the people of 
a divine ambassador, such as Moses or Josue, but only of the 
people of Jehovah (Num. xvi, 3, etc.), Jesus calls the society 
of his believers exclusively his Church (Matt. xvi, 18). As 
was said of Jehovah in the Old Testament (Isa. xxxi, 5), so 
Jesus wishes to gather the children of Jerusalem to himself, 
as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings (Matt. xxiii, 








The Divinity of Christ in Dis Life 253 


37). With the same absolute authority, exclusively his own, 
with which God in the Old Testament sent out the bearers 
of his revelation, Jesus also says: ‘‘ I send to you prophets 
and wise men and scribes ” (Matt. xxili, 34; Luke xi, 49). As 
Jehovah gave to Moses for himself and his brother Aaron the 
assurance, “I will be in thy mouth and in his mouth”’’ (Exod. 
iv, 15), so Jesus also encourages the bearers of his Gospel : 
“TI will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adver- 
saries shall not be able to resist and gainsay ’’ (Luke xxi, 15). 
Jesus never introduces his discourses after the manner of the 
prophets, ‘“‘ Thus saith the Lord,’’ but, to the greatest amaze- 
ment of his hearers, speaks like Jehovah himself, always in 
his own person, “as one having power’’ (Mark i, 22). As 
Jehovah is the Lord of the Old Testament Law, and as this 
forms his own peculiar and inalienable right, so Jesus 
declares himself to be the absolute Lord of this same Law. 
Over against all human authority he sets his word of com- 
mand : ‘‘ The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt. xii, 
1-8). In other words, the Son of Man not only puts aside the 
Old Testament by virtue of his Messianic power and vocation, 
but he stands above the Old Testament, as its Lord and 
Lawgiver who revealed himself indeed in the Old Testament 
by his word and his prophets, but in the New Testament has 
himself come to mankind in the person of the Son of Man.! 
Jesus applies, therefore, the Old Testament utterances of 
Jehovah to himself without any limitation and in solemn as- 
severation compares himself to the God of the Old Testament. 
Hence, it is only a furtherance and deepening of this thought 
when Jesus, as we shall soon see, removes every essential 
difference between himself and God the Father in heaven by 
his utterances in reference to the Son of God. 

Secondly, Jesus expresses his consciousness of his divine 
nature in the demands he makes on mankind in regard to his 
person. Most remarkable is the demand of faith. This forms 
the basis of all his discourses and actions. What he seeks 
among the Israelites, but does not find in sufficient measure, 
is faith (Matt. vill, 10). That which qualifies the Gentiles to 
enter the kingdom of heaven before the Israelites is their 
greater readiness to believe (Matt. viii, 10-12). To make his 
disciples strong in faith is the principal aim of his admoni- 
tions,” the most desired result of his prayers (Luke xxii, 32). 


1 See the detailed proof of the correctness of this exposition in Schanz, 
Markuskommentar, 142 (Freiburg, 1881) ; Knabenbauer, Commentarius in 
Ev, secundum Matt., 1, 471 (Paris, 1892); Comment. in Ev. sec. Marcum, 
89 ff. (Paris, 1894); Tillmann, Der Menschensohn, 126 ff. (Freiburg, 
1907); Anton Seitz, Das Evangelium vom Gottessohn, 408-413 (Freiburg, 
1908); Wiunsche, Jesu Konfitkt mit den Pharisaern wegen des Aehren- 
ausraufens, in Vierteljahresschrift fir Bibelkunde, i, 281-306 (1904). 

Siattie, 2022, 203) X¥,) 25% XViy Ss°XVil, 19; ¢xx1, 20; Mark iv, 40; 
Mine4 =<) 523 -Xi,' 22; lukeivil, so; vill, 25,.¢8¢:XVil, 5,193’ XvVili, $,) 425 
John xi, 15, 25, 40-48; xii, 36-46; xiv, 1, 10. 


254 Christ and the Critics 


Only twice do the synoptists inform us that Jesus marvelled; 
once at faith and the other time at unbelief (Matt. viii, 10; 
Mark vi, 6). In considering his second coming, he is 
especially impressed by the thought whether he shall find 
faith on the earth (Luke xviii, 8). Now, one could, of 
course, easily understand his demand of faith in his words 
and his mission from God, even if he were no more than 
a human Messiah. But his claim to men’s faith refers not 
only to his words and his vocation, but directly to his 
person. ‘‘ Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be scandal- 
ized in me’’ (Luke vii, 23). Faith in the person of Jesus 
is the way to escape eternal ruin and to have life everlast- 
ing (John iii, 15-18). Faith in him is the work required 
by God (John vi, 29), and unbelief in him the sin of the 
world (John xvi, 9). Exactly in the same way as the disciples 
believe in God are they to believe in him (John xiv, 1); 
faith in the person of the Father and in the person of Jesus 
are practically the same. Still more, they blend into each 
other: ‘“‘He that believeth in me doth not believe in me 
but in him that sent me’’ (John xii, 44). Whoever does not 
believe in Jesus proves thereby his complete unbelief in God 
(John v, 37). In a word, Jesus demands not only that men 
should believe in him and his message, but that they should 
believe in him and his person. The Last Judgement will deal 
first of all with unbelief in his person, and then only with un- 
belief in his teaching: “ He that shall be ashamed of me and 
of my words, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, 
when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy 


angels ’’ (Mark viii, 38). He makes himself the object and the — q 


substance of faith. That would be absolute idolatry if Jesus 
were merely a man with a supernatural vocation, and not real, 
incarnate God.} 

Together with the demand for faith Jesus lays claim also to 
unlimited love. He reproaches the Jews not only with un- 
belief, but also with want of love for his person (John viii, 42). 
He continually admonishes his disciples to distinguish them- 
selves through their love to Jesus (John viii, 42; xiv, 15, 21, 
23). It is, however, not merely a natural love that he 
requires of his followers. On the contrary, every merely 
natural love must be subordinated to the love to Jesus. 
‘‘He that loveth father or mother more than me is not 
worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more 
than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. x, 37). Even the 


bonds of the closest natural love must be torn asunder when . 


love to Jesus would thereby be lessened. ‘‘If any man 


1 How unprejudicedly the liberal critics oppose Jesus’s demand for 
faith is shown by the laconic remark of Wrede: ‘‘ That he (Jesus) made 
himself the object of faith or doctrine must be doubted, notw7tthstanding 
some words in the Gospels which say so.” Wrede, Paulus, 94, 2nd ed. 
(Tiibingen, 1907). 





The Divinity of Christ in bis Lite 255 


come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife 
and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life 
also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke xiv, 25). No man, 
no man sent by God even, may speak thus. The command- 
ment to love one’s neighbour says only: “ Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour as thyself.’’ Jesus demands much more; who- 
soever does not love him more than himself, whosoever does 
not love him above all else, cannot be his disciple (Matt. x, 
37-39). Jesus demands for himself the love of the whole 
heart, of the whole soul and of the whole mind, the love which 
we owe to God alone, and asks that we give it in the same 
way. He claims that men shall fulfil towards his person the 
first and greatest commandment which is incumbent on them 
in respect to God. Whoever fails in this love to Jesus fails 
too in his love to God (John v, 42). Whoever hates Jesus 
hates thereby God himself (John xv, 23). Both blend in each 
other and both are alike—love to Jesus and love to God. That 
is a claim to divine rights which penetrates life profoundly. 

Moreover, Jesus allows himself to be worshipped. We 
read frequently that the friends of Jesus “ fell down before 
him and worshipped him,’’ an homage which the Saviour not 
only accepted, but praised and rewarded with miracles. It is 
true, the expression ‘‘ fall down and worship ’”’ may not, as a 
matter of course, be interpreted as an expression of religious, 
divine adoration. In itself it can mean merely the oriental 
salaam; the homage of deep reverence which the servant 
renders to his master and the subject to his king, and consists 
in the fact that the former falls on his knees before the latter 
and touches the ground with his forehead. This conventional 
homage is meant when the Gospel says that the servant “ fell 
down and besought him;’’? when the wise men from the East 
and Herod himself wished to adore the new-born King of the 
Jews as a king (Matt. ii, 2, 8, 11); and when the Roman 
soldiers “ bowing their knees, adored him,’’ in order to mock 
Jesus as a pretender to the position of King of the Jews 
(Mark xv, 19). 

But, provided the expression zpookvvyots, ‘ obeisance,” 
is transferred from the profane to the religious sphere, and 
hence becomes a form of religious homage, it means, accord- 
ing to the usage employed in the language of the Gospels, in 
the highest sense the latreutic worship which is due to God 
alone. Noman and no angel allows such a religious obeisance 
to be offered him. When the centurion Cornelius “ falls at his 
[| Peter’s] feet and adores him,’’ the prince of the Apostles 
reproves him with the words: “ Arise, I myself also am a 
man’’ (Acts x, 25, 26). When St John before the angel of 


1 See A. Seitz, Die Anbetung Jesu als Gottessohn in den Evangelien, 
in Theologie und Glaube, 286 ff. (1910). 
2 Matt. xviii, 26, according to the Greek original : adored. 


256 Christ and the Critics 


the Apocalypse ‘‘ falls at his feet, to adore him, the angel 
says: ‘ See thou do it not; I am»thy fellow servant and of thy 
brethren. Adore God’” (Apoc. xix, 10; xxii, 8, 9). To fall 
down in homage is the highest act of worship which the 
believer performed to the honour of Jehovah in the temple at 
Jerusalem (John iv, 20-22; xii, 20; Acts vill, 27), and which 
the ancients continually render at the throne of God (Rev. 
iv, 10; v, 14} vii, 11), and that “ adoration in spirit and in 
truth’’ which Jesus demands from the “true adorers of the 
Father ’’ (John iv, 20-24), and of which he says: “‘ Thou shalt 
adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”’ 
(Matt. iv, 10; Luke iv, 8). 

Now, Jesus allows the obeitsance or kneeling adoration to 
be offered to him many times and on very different occasions. 
The question is only whether it was, at those times, a matter 
of religious adoration or merely of worldly homage. If we 
leave out of consideration the concrete cases, as they are 
reported in the Gospel, it may be supposed that the Jews with 
their secular and political ideal of the Messiah might have 
adored the Saviour, now and then, as the expected Master 
Rabbi and national liberator, and therefore may have done 
homage to the Messiah-King who was to destroy the Romans, 
according to the secular manner of a court. Nevertheless, 
the Gospel, as far as we see, contains not a single case of 
obeisance of this kind. Jesus would have refused it just as 
decidedly as he did the title and name of an earthly Messiah- 
King, and protested against being called Lord and Master 
after the manner of the Rabbis and being honoured as such. 
As he considered his whole work and the significance of his 
person as exclusively religious, he could also consent to 
receive the honour offered to him only as religious homage. 

Yet not only did he himself consider it so. In the sub- 
jective feelings of those who paid him homage, the worship 
offered him was always of a religious nature. It is true, in 


various degrees. It sometimes happened that people who 


honoured in the Saviour the possessor of supernatural miracu- 
lous powers fell down before him involuntarily in religious 


awe and hope without being in any way aware of his Messiah- 


ship or of his divinity. That may have occurred in the case 
of the Canaanitish woman, who adored him and said: ‘‘ Lord, 


help me” (Matt. xv, 25); and perhaps also in the case of © 


6¢ 


the leper, who ‘‘ adored him, saying: ‘ Lord, if thou wilt, 
thou canst make me clean’ ” (Matt. viii, 2). In other cases, 
adorers cast themselves down before Jesus because, over- 
whelmed by the power of his teaching, his person and his 
miracles, they looked upon him as the Messiah in the true, 
religious sense, sent from God, and endowed with divine 
wisdom and might, without, on that account, regarding 
and acknowledging him decisively and for more than a 








The Divinity of Christ in bis Lite 257 


moment as God. Such was the man who was born blind, 
who, after being healed and instructed by Jesus, hails 
Jesus as the Son of God, ‘‘ falls down and adores him” 
(John ix, 35-39). Jairus also, the leader of the synagogue, 
was for a moment animated by a similar religious sentiment 
when he adored Jesus and begged for the resuscitation of his 
dead daughter (Matt. ix, 18); and likewise the man from 
Gerasa with the unclean spirit, who cried aloud to him for 
help, addressing him as the “Son of the most high God’’ 
(Mark v, 6, 7); and the disciples who, after the stilling of the 
storm on the lake, and the walking of Jesus on the water, 
“adored him, saying: ‘ Indeed, thou art the Son of God’ ”’ 
(Matt. xiv, 33). In such circumstances, if he knew himself 
not to be God, Jesus could not have allowed a purely religious 
adoration to be offered him. For, in so far as it stood opposed 
to something divine or even to a momentarily excited faith 
in his genuine deity, it rested—under the aforesaid supposition 
that he knew that he was not God—on superstition only. But 
in so far as it was applicable to the Messiah as merely a 
religious ambassador of God, it was a sin which Jesus, the 
jealous defender of the rights of his Father, was compelled 
to reject, as energetically as Peter and the angel of the 
Apocalypse rejected the religious adoration offered them. But 
if Jesus did not reject it, and allowed himself to be adored as 
the Messiah, he showed thereby a complete consciousness of 
his incarnate divinity. So much the more is this true of those 
cases in which, as we shall subsequently see, it is a matter 
of adoring Jesus as the Son of God in the strictly christo- 
logical sense of the word. So was it with the women and 
disciples after the Lord’s resurrection (Matt. xxviii, 9, 173 
Luke xxiv, 52). It is clear that Jesus by accepting this 
adoration confessed himself to be essentially God. 

A third series of revelations of the essentially divine con- 
sciousness of Jesus relates to his almighty works. Omnipo- 
tence is the most convincing attribute of God and the most 
comprehensible proof of divinity. Jesus himself sees therein 
the manifestation of divinity, since he declares of God, in 
contrast to men, that with him all things are possible (Matt. 
xix, 26). But whoever reflects impartially upon the portrait 
of the Saviour given in the Gospels receives undoubtedly the 
impression that Jesus was omnipotent. Neither men, nor 
circumstances, nor the powers of nature are able to interfere 
with his life and actions. He never had to give up doing 
anything which he had resolved to do, nor did he ever suffer 
or experience anything which he himself had not wished. 
Never and nowhere, as happened occasionally to the disciples, 
did he lack the ability to complete, at will, even the most 
difficult task, surpassing the powers of any mere creature. 

His working of miracles is a proof of this. With unique, 

I, T7 


/ 


258 Christ and the Critics 


divine omnipotence he heals every phase of suffering and 
every disease of humanity, brings the dead to life, commands 
evil spirits and compels the forces of nature to obey him. (See 
the chapters on the “ Miracles of Jesus,’’ in vol. II of this 
work.) Every attempt to explain the miracles of Jesus other- _ 
wise than by having recourse to divine omnipotence breaks 
down completely. Jesus also is well aware that his works 
are those of omnipotence and not the works of man. “ Thou 
canst not make one hair white or black,” he says (Matt. v, 36) 
of all men without exception, while he works as the Lord of 
life and death, and this from his own inherent power. If he 
sometimes indicates his miracles as works of his Father 
(Mark v, 19; John v, 19, 20, 36; xi, 41; xiv, 10), performed 
by the power of the spirit of God (Matt. xii, 28; Luke xi, 20), 
he nevertheless identifies:this power with himself, and bears 
in himself the essential plenitude of divine miraculous power. 
This proceeds from him as his own personal power and char- 
acteristic. Whoever comes near to him has this feeling 
(Matt. xii, 28). The power to perform miracles, therefore, 
is his to use at any moment. He can employ it without first 
appealing to God, when, how and as often as he wishes. One 
single word is sufficient to accomplish the most miraculous 
result. Miracles appear as a perfectly natural expression of 
the inborn power within him. They stream forth as from a 
limitless, inexhaustible spring, without in the least exhausting 
or even diminishing its flow. This inexhaustible, ever fresh 
source of divine omnipotence he possesses so independently 
and so personally, that he imparts unlimited power also to 
his disciples to work miracles in his name and by his orders 
(Matt. x, 1; Mark iii, 15; Luke ix, 1). “ Heal the sick, raise 
the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils; freely have you 
received, freely give’’ (Matt. x, 8). With these words he 
sends his disciples out into the world. And their deeds corre- 
spond to the assurances given them. They do cast out devils 
and heal all infirmities and sicknesses (Mark vi, 13; 1x, 37; 
Luke ix, 6). They are able to report joyfully to the Saviour: 
“Lord, the devils also are subject to us in thy name’’ (Luke 


x, 17). After the death of their Master, the Apostles continue 4 


in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth to heal the 
sick, to cast out devils from those possessed by them and to 
raise the dead (Acts ili, 6, 16; iv, 10, 30; ix, 34-42). 

Still more astonishing than physical miracles is the spiritual 
power of forgiving sins used by Christ. No prophet had ever ~ 
done that. At most, the prophets announced forgiveness in — 
the name of Jehovah (2 Kings xii, 13). Everywhere in the ~ 


Old Testament the forgiveness of sins is reserved for God 


alone, as he alone can judge sinners. Not once did Judaism ~ 
ascribe the power to forgive sins to the expected Messiah.* — 


1G. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, i, 215 (Leipzig, 1898). 





Che Divinity of Christ in bis Wife 259 


The Pharisees, contemporaries of Jesus, thought the same. 
They denounced as downright blasphemy the arrogance of any 
man forgiving sins (Matt. ix, 3; Mark il, 7; Luke v, 21). 
Jesus silently confirms the correctness of this view. But in 
order to show that the Messiah is more than a man and 
claims divine privileges, he not only forgives sins (Matt. ix, 2 
and parallels), but expressly ascribes to himself the right to 
forgive them, and proves by a miracle that he possesses this 
absolute power in his own person (Matt. ix, 5-7 and parallels). 
Indeed, he goes so far as to transfer this divine right of 
forgiving sins in his name to his disciples : ‘‘ Whose sins you 
shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you 
shall retain, they are retained’’ (John xx, 23). “‘ Amen I say 
to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound 
also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth 
shall be loosed also in heaven ’’ (Matt. xviil, 18). 

The power to forgive sins comes, moreover, only from the 
essential Messianic vocation of Jesus of being the Redeemer 
and Saviour of sinners. Jesus is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost (Luke xix, 10). The saving consists in the 
rescuing men from the condition of being eternally lost, in 
which man finds himself,.in consequence of the guilt of sin 
weighing upon him. It is accomplished, however, not by any 
means merely by the fact that God announces forgiveness to 
the sinner and pardons his sins. Rather are this forgiveness 
and remission connected with the sacrifice of the life of Jesus. 
Jesus expressly says that “his life is a ransom for many ”’ 
(Matt. xx, 28), and that his blood is the means for the remis- 
sion of sins (Matt. xxvi, 28 and parallels). Jesus has, there- 
fore, the full consciousness of such a value pertaining to his 
life, his blood and his personality, that their sacrifice in death 
forms a complete substitute for the offence given to God, 
which is inherent in sin. It would be madness and blasphemy 
if a mere man, and in any case a creature, should assume 
such importance. ‘“‘ The man who fulfils the prophecy that 
God will redeem his people from all their sins, the man who 
in his own person steps into the gulf which yawns between 
God and the world, the man who ascribes to his own life a 
value that can replace the infinitely great shortcomings of 
mankind, and whose importance to the world is like that of 
God, is the incorporation in a human person of God’s 
willingness to save’’+—the divine Redeemer in the form of 
man. 

With the right to forgive sins and with the sin-destroying 
work of redemption there is immediately and logically con- 
nected the right, which Jesus reserves for himself, of at some 
time pronouncing the final sentence on the living and the dead, 


1 J. Steinbeck, Das géitliche Selbstbewusstsein Jesu nach dem Zeugnis 
der Synoptiker, 55 (Leipzig, 1908). 


260 Cbrist and tbe Critics 


as the Judge of the world. He has appeared to redeem the 
world in humility and poverty; but he will come again at the 
last day to judge the world, in divine glory and in “his 
majesty and that of his Father and the holy angels ” (Luke ix, 
26 and parallels). He will not only take part in the judge- 
ment, like the angels, the Apostles and the just, but he, and 
he alone, in his own person will carry out the judgement in 
divine omnipotence (Matt. vii, 23 and parallels). The judge- 
ment and the final sentence are so exclusively his task that 
even the heavenly Father will not participate in it: ‘“ For 
neither doth the Father judge any man; but hath given all 
judgement to the Son, that all men may honour the Son, as 
they honour the Father’’ (John v, 22). 

If Jesus, as Judge of the world, merits the same divine 
honour and adoration that belong to God the Father, it is 
evident that the Judge is not merely a human representative 
of God, but God himself, just like the Father. For divine 
honour and adoration cannot be transferred to any creature, 
not even to a merely human representative of God. As man, 
even as merely a humanly-considered Messianic Son of Man, 
he would, moreover, be at most capable of carrying out, in 
the name and by the order of God, the sentence pronounced 
by God as Judge. Christ, on the contrary, will try the heart 
and the reins and judge with omniscient keenness (Matt. x, 26 
and parallels); he will judge men not alone from their out- 
ward works, but from their innermost thoughts and senti- 
ments, known to God only (Matt. xii, 36), and he will, as an 
independent sovereign, render to each, according to the 
measure of his deserts or of his guilt, everlasting life or 
everlasting punishment (Matt. vil, 23; xvi, 27; xxv, 32-46). 
Only the all-wise, all-just and almighty God can judge the 
world thus. 

In fact, the whole Old Testament also, down to the time 
of Christ, had already announced that Jehovah, the Lord, the 
true God, would execute the judgement of the world in his 
own person. The judgement day is ‘‘ the great and dreadful 
day of the Lord” (Mal. iv, 5). ‘‘ In the glory of his majesty ” 
the Lord shall rise to execute judgement (Isa. ii, 19; Ixvi, 15, 
16). The Lord will gather together all nations and tongues, 
that they may see his glory (Isa. Ixvi, 18). ‘‘ The Lord my 
God shall come and all the saints with him” to the judge- 
ment (Zach. xiv, 5). ‘‘ The Lord, the God of gods, our God 
shall come” openly to the judgement, ‘‘ and the heavens ~ 
shall declare his justice; for God is judge’’ (Ps. xlix, 1-6). 
‘The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth’ (1 Kings ii, 10). 





The Lord shall judge the world with justice and mercy, and — . 


the nations with truth and equity (Ps. xcv, 12; xcvii, 8). 
‘‘ The Lord standeth up to judge: and he standeth to judge 


the people” (Isa. iii, 13). In short, every doubt is excluded — ‘ 





The Divinity of Christ in this Wife 261 


that it is Jehovah, the Lord God, who, according to the 
Old Testament, will personally conduct the judgement of 
the world. Since, therefore, Jesus Christ confirms the Old 
Testament teaching concerning the Last Judgement and 
applies it to himself, and represents himself as the only 
Judge of the world, he thereby unequivocally proclaims him- 
self to be God. 

We have thus far considered the superhuman consciousness 
of Jesus as to his nature in general, without speaking of his 
testimony to himself as the Son of God. It still remains neces- 
sary to show in what spiritual connection this revelation of his 
divinity stands with his Messianic consciousness. All the 
utterances of his supernatural consciousness which have been 
specified are made by Jesus Christ in his character of the 
Messiah. No one who studies them carefully can doubt this. 
Even our opponents agree with us on this point. On the other 
hand, they assert that Jesus, as the Messiah, reveals thereby 
no superhuman consciousness as to his nature, but merely a 
superhuman consciousness of his vocation. Christ, they say, 
has been fully aware that he was, by nature, a genuine man 
like all other men, only he imagined that he had received from 
God a Messianic vocation. From this Messianic réle can be 
explained the extraordinary and superhuman character of all 
that Jesus asserted and thought about himself. 

But, as we have seen, with such an explanation we arrive 
at no result, especially if, like the liberal school, we look 
upon the Messianic vocation of Jesus from a purely Jewish 
point of view—that is, if we make the Saviour proclaim 
himself to be the Messiah only in the sense of contemporary 
Judaism. But also every other conception of the Messianic 
idea, unless it holds firmly to the divine Messiah, will not do 
justice to the superhuman consciousness of Jesus. The utter- 
ances in which Jesus, by his comparisons, on the one hand, 
definitely distinguishes himself from the world of creatures, 
and, on the other hand, puts himself on a level with God; the 
practical demands which Jesus makes upon men’s faith, love 
and honour; and the actual proofs of his divinity, which he 
furnishes by his deeds of omnipotence, as a worker of miracles, 
the forgiver and destroyer of sins, and judge of the world— 
point not only to the Saviour’s consciousness of a divine 
vocation, but also to his consciousness of a divine nature in 
its fullest extent. Only by the fact that we recognize in Jesus 
Christ the Messiah-God is the whole problem of his super- 
natural self-consciousness solved. Accordingly, Christ not 
only elevated the Messianic idea, characteristic of his age 
and surroundings, from the low level of the national-Jewish 
and worldly political views, but at the same time brought to 
us the certainty that he, as the Messiah, must be also in every 
particular the Messiah-God, and actually God. His Messianic 


262 Christ and the Critics 


consciousness is, therefore, divine consciousness; His Mes- 
Sianic revelation is a divine revelation; and the Son of Man 
is the Son of God. 


II.—Curist’s CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS DIVINITY. 


1. Christ’s General Consciousness of being the Son of God. 


Together with the Messianic testimony for his divinity thus 
far considered runs also a direct revelation of his divine son- 
ship. Whoever has read the Gospel knows that Jesus calls 
himself therein the Son of God and allows himself to be so 
called. Even the most radical critics almost unanimously 
concede the fact that Christ’s characterization of himself as 
the Son of God goes back not only to the disciples, but to 
Jesus himself. Only the meaning of this designation is 
questioned. Does Jesus wish to represent himself as the 
Son of God by nature, or has the expression on his lips 
another subordinate significance? 

Judged by our manner of thought and speech, this question 
would be easy to answer. In the West we usually give the 
name “son’’ only to one who in the literal sense has been 
begotten by his father. With the Eastern, and especially 
with the Semite, it is otherwise. For him the name of son 
has not only the above-named meaning, but also a much more 
extensive one. It is used in order to express every close con- 
nection and kinship, every physical and moral communion or 
relation, which in any way resembles the relation between 
son and father. The Holy Scriptures throughout hold tena- 
ciously to this linguistic usage. Whoever has been anointed 
with oil is called a ‘‘ son of oil” (Zach. iv, 14); whoever has 
deserved death, or has been condemned to death, is called the 
‘“ son of death” (1 Kings xx, 31; 2 Kings xii, 5). The word 
“son ’’ is also transferred to the physical relations of lifeless 
things. Thus the arrow is the “son of the bow,’’ or “son of 
the quiver’’ (Job xli, 19; Lam. iii, 13); the threshed out 
grain of wheat is the “son of the threshing-floor’”’ (Isa. xxi, 
10). Morally considered, the pupils of the prophets are ‘“‘ sons 
of the prophets’’ (3 Kings xx, 35); evil men are “sons of 
Belial” (Deut. xiii, 13; 1 Kings ii, 12), ‘‘ sons of perdition ” 
(John xvii, 12); the damned are “sons of hell’’ (Matt. xxiii, 
15); the enemies of Jesus are “sons of the devil’’ (John viii, 
44); while Jesus calls the Apostles “ my sons’’ (Mark x, 24; 
John x11, 733).3 

Similarly and in an analogous sense we find also the expres- 
sion “‘son of God’”’ or “sons of God.’’ Above all, it was 
natural to call the angels “sons of God”’ in consequence of 
their close connection with God (Job 1, 6; ii, 1; xxxvili, 7; 


1 In the English version the words réxva and filioli are often trans- ks 
lated by the word ‘‘ children.” —Tr. 





The Divinity of Christ in this Life 263 


Ps. Ixxxviil, 7). For the same reason just men and true 
servants of the Most High receive the title “sons of God’’ 
(Wisd. ii, 13; Eccl. iv, 11). In this sense it was allowable to 
distinguish the Israelites by calling them “sons of God,’’! 
and the people of Israel the “son of God’’ (Exod. iv, 22; 
Osee xi, 1). With still greater appropriateness the name 
“son of God’’ was transferred to the representative of God 
among the chosen people, to the anointed king in the service 
of Jehovah (2 Kings vii, 14). The kings and judges of this 
world in general receive this title (Ps. Ixxxi, 6). 

It is, therefore, evident that the King of kings, the anointed 
of God in the highest sense of the term, the longed-for 
Messiah, deserved to be called the “Son of God.’’ It is true 
that he appears in the Old Testament only seldom under this 
name, most distinctly in the second Psalm. Yet the title 
“Son of God’’ was certainly known and used as a Messianic 
title about the time of Christ. The Book of Henoch and the 
Fourth Book of Esdras testify to this fact (Henoch cv, 2; 
4 Esdras vii, 28).?. It is no less evident from the Gospels that 
the Jews who were contemporaries of Jesus regarded the title 
“Son of God ’’ as Messianic (John i, 49; vi, 70; Matt. xvi, 16; 
Mark xiv, 61). By this they meant for the most part only that 
the Messiah was the Son of God in the moral, metaphorical 
sense of the word—namely, that, as God’s ambassador who 
brings salvation to Israel, he was superior to all mortals. 
Sometimes, indeed, they thought of a metaphysical sonship 
with God on the part of the Messiah, and, in connection with 
the second Psalm, remembered the Emmanuel of Isaias, and 
recalled the Logos-doctrine of the Books of Wisdom, and 
the positive prophecy that God himself would come to rescue 
Israel. Justin, the philosopher, still testifies of the Jews in 
the second century : “If we bring up to them the [ Old Testa- 
ment | passages which speak of the suffering of the Messiah, 
of his being worthy of adoration and of his divinity, they are 
compelled to confess that all that was prophesied of the 
Messiah; yet they deny that Jesus was the Messiah, although 
they recognize that the Messiah was to come, to suffer, to 
rule and to be worthy of adoration, as God.’’® 

How, then, did Jesus himself understand the title Son of 
God, and ascribe it to himself? The whole Christian world 
has at all times maintained that this was done in the highest, 
metaphysical sense, and that Jesus has testified to the fact 

Bet Riv it isa. 1,2 peRiv, ITs) Jer, 1119)22'3°Osy il, 1y¢similariyiin 
the N. T. the disciples and believers, Matt. v, 9, 45; Luke vi, 35; 
Poitiers Mis 823 1 JORMA, 13,2, 

2 Also in the Sibylline books (iii, 776), Messiah is called ‘‘ Son of the 
great God.” Yet this passage may have been a Christian interpolation. 
See Geffken, Die Oracula Sibyllina, in Die griechischen Schriftsteller 


der ersten dret Jaurhunderte, 87 (Leipzig, 1902). 
8 Dialogus cum Tryphone Jude@o, c. 67. 


264 Christ and the Critics 


that he was by nature the Son of God. The new school of 
destructive criticism thinks otherwise. It asserts that Christ’s 
consciousness of being the Son of God in no way overstepped 
the limits of a purely human relation of Jesus to God the Father. 

Individual modernists, and among them in particular Alfred 
Loisy,’ think themselves justified in supposing that Jesus 
understood by his divine sonship nothing but his Messiahship, 
and this only in the sense of a purely human, Jewish-apoca- 
lyptical Messiahship; that in Jesus the Messiah and the Son 
of God are synonymous ideas, and because the Messiah 
belongs to the order of creatures only, so in regard to Jesus, 
as the Son of God, one must not think of a kinship of nature 
or of entire consubstantiality with God. 

This certainly means turning things entirely topsy-turvy. 
Even if it should be proved that the title Son of God was for 
Jesus synonymous with the title Messiah, it would not by any 
means follow that Jesus, as the Son of God, was not a super- 
human being. For the enemies of orthodox Christianity, who 
at once decide in advance that the Messiahship is to be 
brought down to the level of the purely human, the above- 
mentioned conclusion is certainly and cogently evident. But 
we have already demonstrated that Jesus, as the Messiah, had 
not only, in the highest sense, a superhuman consciousness as 
to his vocation, but also a thoroughly superhuman conscious- 
ness as to his divine nature. If, therefore, his divine sonship 
were to prove equivalent to his Messiahship, we should, 
precisely for that reason, have to recognize him as by nature 
the Son of God. , 

But the view that Jesus understood by his divine sonship 
merely the Messiahship is plainly false. It is true, those who 
were possessed of devils, those whom he healed, the astonished 
masses of the people and sometimes also the disciples called 
him the Son of God, without thinking of anything but his 
Messiahship. But that does not come into consideration here 
at all. It is, rather, merely a question in what sense Jesus 
himself applied the expression Son of God to his own person. 
Did Jesus, when he called himself the Son of God, think 
simply of his Messianic vocation? Loisy and those who are of 
his way of thinking maintain this. But such an assertion 
cannot find support in one single utterance of the Saviour,? 
while, on the contrary, the most of the utterances about the 


1 L’Evangile et PE gitse, 42, 53-57; Simfples réflexions, 72; Les Evan- 
giles synopiiques, 1, 243; a brilliant refutation by Lepin, Jésus Messie 
et Fils de Dieu, 280 ff. (Paris, 1906); Les Théories de M. Loisy, 304 ff. 
(Paris, 1908). 

2 Loisy appealed formerly to the confession of Peter and the utterances 
of Jesus about the judgement. Now he confesses in his Evangiles synop- 
tigues, 11, 363, 604-609, that these two texts also about the Son of God 
are to be understood in the metaphysical sense. Hence, he bluntly pro- 
claims them not genuine. 


The Divinity of Christ in this Lite 265 


Son of God stand in no direct connection whatever with the 
Saviour’s Messianic utterances. 

Even those who positively deny the divinity of Jesus recog- 
nize this. Harnack writes: “ Jesus himself has given to the 
idea of the ‘Son of God’ a meaning, on account of which it 
almost falls out of the Messianic scheme or does not abso- 
lutely need this scheme for its comprehension.’’! They go, 
for the most part, so far that, exaggerating the facts of the 
case at the expense of the Messiahship of Jesus, they assume 
that the Messianic consciousness of Jesus has only grown out 
of the consciousness of his divine sonship.*, However mon- 
strous such an assumption is, the statement underlying it is 
nevertheless correct (as we shall soon convince ourselves)— 
namely, that Jesus did announce his divine sonship already 
before his Messiahship and independently of it. 

The modernist equation—The Son of God=the Messiah, 
and the Messiah=a man—must accordingly be entirely re- 
jected. It attributes Jewish notions of the time to Jesus 
Christ quite arbitrarily. According to the Jewish opinion of 
that age, it is true, the appellation Son of God was for the 
most part merely an honorary Messianic title, and the Messiah 
was also merely a man—in both cases because official Judaism 
at the time of Christ adhered to an earthly, national idea of 
the Messiah. Jesus Christ, however, as we have shown, con- 
ceived his Messianic vocation as something so supernatural 
and divine that a merely human person was insufficient for 
its realization, but rather a divine man, a divine Messiah, was 
required for that purpose. Hence, it is evident that he plainly 
gave to the expressions “Son of God’’ and “ Messiah’’ an 
equally divine meaning; and, in fact, that precisely his 
essential divine sonship was the foundation and condition of 
his divinely Messianic mission and person. That this con- 
ception of the doctrine of the divine sonship is really the same 
as that of the Saviour, the following investigation will show. 
For the present we affirm only that the divine sonship of Jesus 
ought not be judged of by his Messiahship, and still less by 
the Jewish idea of the Messiah. 

In this, as has already been remarked, most of the opponents 
of the divinity of Jesus are agreed. They are convinced that 
the utterances of Jesus which relate to his divine sonship must 
be investigated by themselves and independently of the Mes- 
Sianic question. We can obtain certainty as to what Jesus 
understood by his divine sonship only by examining the mean- 


1 Wesen des Christentums, 80; Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 421, 2nd ed. 
Igor). 
. 2 Be Vie de Jésus, 76 ff., 120 ff.; Edmund Stapfer, /ésus-Christ 
avant son ministére, 88 ff., 187 ff. (Paris, 1896); Harnack, Wesen, 80 f., 
87 f.; B. Weiss, Das Leben Jesu, i, 280 (1902); Lehrbuch der biblischen 
Theologie des N. T., 62, 288 (1903); J. Kogel, Das Messtantsche 
Bewusstsein Jesu, in Reich Christt, viii, 403-420. 


266 Christ and the Critics 


ing of his utterances in regard to it. In doing this the aim 
in view must always be directed to the one alternative into 
which the whole problem of the Son of God resolves itself : 
“Did Jesus claim to be the Son of God in a sense wholly 
transcending the limitations of time and the powers of a 
human creature, or did he reveal himself as the Son of God 
within the limits of a creature’s purely human relations to the 
Father in heaven?’ 

Hostile critics assume in advance the latter supposition. 
In their evolutionary view of the world, history and religion, 
they declare at the outset, as a basic principle, that Jesus 
applied to himself merely the common Jewish idea of the Son 
of God prevalent at the time, although certainly in a some- 
what more intensive way than that in which the divine son- 
ship could have been described by the average Jew. Heinrich 
Weinel, among othersy. expresses himself on this point as 
follows: ‘‘ According to the use made of the word ‘son’ in 
the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, one is not compelled to 
think of a peculiar kind of origin for the ‘son,’ but certainly 
must think of an especially intimate relation to the ‘ Father.’ 
Jesus spoke freely of others also as ‘sons of God ’—that ye 
may be ‘children’ of your Father in heaven. And he un- 
doubtedly conceived this title in this sense, and fulfilled its 
significance with the whole intensity of his love to God.’’! 
In other words, Christ’s divine sonship is to be interpreted 
according to the idea of divine sonship common to his con- 
temporaries and his fellow-men. As in the Old Testament the 
angels, the kings of Israel, and the Israelites themselves, and 
in the New Testament the disciples and Christian believers 
are called sons and children of God in consequence of their 
intimate moral relations to God, so Jesus is said to have con- 
ceived the title Son of God, not as an expression of his natural 
relation to the Father, but as a token of his special spiritual 
and ethical nearness to God. According to O. Pfleiderer, 
“Christ, although he is called the only begotten Son of God, 
nevertheless appears as essentially the same kind of model, 
known from earliest times, of pious men in general, filled with 
the spirit of God.’’? According to Harnack, the deeper 
“knowledge of God is the whole import of the name of son”’ 
as used by Jesus. ‘ Jesus is convinced that he knows God, as 
no one else has done before him, and he knows that he has the 
vocation to impart to all others this knowledge by word and 
deed, and therewith to inform them of their adoption as 
children by God. In this consciousness he knows himself to 
be the Son, called and appointed by God, hence the Son of 
God.’’? Reinhold Seeberg expresses the same idea in direct 


1 Jesus im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, iii (Tiibingen, 1907). 
2 Die Entwicklung des Christentums, 31 (Miinchen, 1907). 
3 Wesen des Christentums, 81; so Bousset, Jesus, gg, 3rd ed, 


The Divinity of Christ in his Life 267 


support of the hazy christology of Schleiermacher and Ritschl : 
“The will of God, leading the history of mankind to salva- 
tion . . . united itself with the man Jesus from the first 
moment of his existence . . . and penetrated his feelings, 
thoughts and will. Thus did the man Jesus become the ‘ Son 
of God.’”! Bernhard Weiss also substitutes for the meta- 
physical consubstantiality of the Son with the Father a moral 
similarity of nature, whereby the man Jesus is qualified above 
all other men for the most intimate acquaintance with the 
purposes of the Father and for their accomplishment in his 
Messianic vocation.* Finally, Emil Schirer, in agreement 
with these ideas, finds that the relation of the Son to the 
Father is “not a natural, physical or metaphysical, but an _ 
ethical relation . . . analogous to the relation of all God’s 
children to their heavenly Father, and yet having an intensity 
which was unique by reason of a unique kind of knowledge 
of God’’ and having also a corresponding call to reveal it.’ 

This selection of quotations is sufficient to give us an in- 
sight into the ideas of modern liberal theologians concerning 
the Son of God. All of them, including the modernists, who 
agree with Loisy admirably as to the equation, ‘the Son of 
God =the Messiah,’’ interpret Christ’s consciousness of divine 
sonship as a spiritual and moral relation of the man, Jesus, 
to the heavenly Father, precisely as every man can come into 
connection with God and become a child of God. Only Jesus, 
as the Son of God, stands one step higher than other men. 
As his knowledge of God and his fidelity to his Messianic 
vocation have in them something extraordinary, so the divine 
sonship, resulting from it, is extraordinary. Yet it has not 
transcended the limits of the purely human, nor broken 
Christ’s purely natural relation, as a creature, to the Father. 
Jesus is said also not to have professed to be the consub- 
stantial Son of the Father in the sense of Christian dogma. 

If we examine more closely in what way and by what means 
the modern theology about Jesus arrives at this result, we find 
again that it proceeds according to its usual rule of an 
“exactly critical’’ treatment of the text. In advance one 
must regard as already established what one wishes under all 
circumstances to establish—namely, that the Son of God, 
Jesus, has worked his way out of purely human conditions 
and remains within the limits of those conditions. The utter- 
ances of Jesus in the Gospels which do not lend themselves 
to this view are unhesitatingly rejected as not genuine, but 
those which show an appearance of complaisance are pressed 


1 Die Kirche Deutschlands im 19 Jahrhundert, 294 (Leipzig, 1903). 

4 Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie des N. T., 58-60 (Berlin, 1895) ; 
Leben Jesu, 11, 145 f. (Stuttgart and Berlin). 

3 Das messtanische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 10 ff. (Gdttingen, 1903); 
similarly, Réville, /ésus de Nazareth, ii, 11 (Paris, 1897). 


268 Christ and the Critics 


with violence into the procrustean bed of the “ natural ’’ theory 
of the Son of God. 

In accordance with this “ critical’? method of procedure, 
the utterances of Jesus in regard to the Son of God in the 
Gospel of John are entirely, and those of the synoptics partly, 
eliminated or mutilated. Then these theologians announce, 
with a superior air of unprejudiced research: “It is neither 
paradox nor yet rationalism, but a simple statement of the 
facts, as they lie before us in the Gospels, that not the Son, 
but the Father only, belongs to the Gospel, as Jesus preached 
it.’’! That is true for one who is pledged to a Gospel trimmed, 
fashioned and interpreted to suit the desires of the liberals. 
But on every other kind of investigator such a procedure 
makes the impression of an attempt at strangulation. 
Only that solution deserves to be considered which deals 
seriously and honourably with all the utterances concerning 
the Son of God found in the critically sound texts of the 
Gospels. 

If, then, we first take a hasty general view of these utter- 
ances of Jesus concerning the Son of God, it is palpably 
evident that our opponents’ supposition is fundamentally 
false—that the Saviour called himself the Son of God after 
the manner of men, “in analogy with the relation of all God’s 
children to their heavenly Father.’’ Rather do we receive the 
very opposite impression. Jesus claims to be the Son of God 
in an entirely different sense from that which says that all 
men are children of God, and that his filial relation to the 
Father ts such that it finds no application to men. As often 
as Jesus speaks of his relations with his Father he uses con- 
stantly and without exception the expression “ My Father ’’ ; 
and as often as he calls the attention of the disciples to their 
childlike relation to God, there is the equally definite char- 
acterization, “‘ Your Father.’’ Never does he associate him- 
self with the disciples and with men by the natural form of 
speech, ‘Our Father.’’ It is true, in the Lord’s Prayer he 
teaches the Apostles to pray, ‘‘ Our Father, who art in 
heaven’’ (Matt. vi, 9). Yet Jesus only puts this prayer into 
the mouth of the disciples. He himself does not pray so. 
This is clear both from the distinct command, ‘‘ Thus therefore 
shall ye pray,’’ and also from the added conclusion in reference 
to forgiveness, in which again at once the term “ Your . 
Father ’’ is used: “ For if you will forgive men their offences, 
your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences ’”’ 
(Matt. vi, 14). Even on those occasions in which Jesus unites 
himself with the disciples before God, and when therefore it 
would be certainly expected that he would use the collective 
expression, “Our Father,’’ there stands, on the contrary, 
“My Father’’: “I will not drink from henceforth of this 


1 Harnack, Wesen des Chrisientums, ot. 


Che Divinity of Christ in this Life 269 


fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it with you 
new in the kingdom of my Father’’ (Matt. xxvi, 29). ‘“ And 
I send the promise of my Father upon you”’ (Luke xxiv, 40). 
“Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the world’’ (Matt. 
xxv, 34). Thus and similarly does Jesus distinguish un- 
equivocally between his divine sonship and that of the 
disciples and men in general. 

Gustav Dalman, the best-informed scholar in respect to the 
Aramaic language, spoken by Jesus, sees himself forced to 
this confession: ‘‘ Nowhere do we find that Jesus proclaimed 
himself to be the Son of God in such a way that merely a 
religious and ethical relation to God is meant, which others 
also could and should also in reality possess. . . . Jesus has 
given men unmistakably to understand that he is not only 
‘a,’ but ‘the’ Son of God.’’! The examination separately of 
the most important utterances of Jesus concerning the Son 
of God will strengthen this opinion. 


2. The First Revelation of the Son of God by Christ 
in the Temple. 


The first words which have come down to us from Jesus 
refer to his filial relations with the Father. At the age of 
twelve Jesus had made the first Easter journey with his 
parents to Jerusalem. After the conclusion of the seven days’ 
festival the boy remained behind in the temple, where his 
anxious parents, distressed by his absence, found him after 
three days, sitting among the Rabbis and astonishing the 
teachers, already grey in service, by his knowledge of the 
Law. In the agitation caused thus to her tender mother’s 
heart, Mary addresses to him the mild reproach: “‘ Son, why 
hast thou done so to us? Behold, thy father and I have 
sought thee sorrowing.’’ Whereupon came this remarkable 
reply from the wonderful child: “ How is it that you sought 
me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s 
business?’’ (Luke 11, 48, 409). 

It does not matter whether Jesus meant “in the house of 
my Father,’’ or “in intercourse with my Father,’’ or, finally, 
“in the sphere of work or nature of my Father’’; evidently 
he means all that at the same time by the quite unlimited ex- 
pression: “In what pertains to my Father.’’ Yet, however 
we may exegetically circumscribe or extend these words, in 
any case Jesus expresses in them his full, certain and com- 
plete consciousness of being the Son of God, just as we find 
it in his whole later life and in all his words and deeds. No 


1 Die Worte Jesu, mit Berticksichtigung des nachkanontschen judt- 
schen Schriftums und der aramaischen Sprache erortert, i, 230, 235 
(Leipzig, 1898), 


270 Cbrist and tbe Critics 


one can seriously doubt this. Even the harshest enemies of 
the divinity of Jesus must confess: “ Already, as a twelve- 
year-old boy, he felt himself to be the Son of God in the 
unique sense of the term.’’! 

If that is the case, then it is, above all, certain that Christ’s 
consciousness of divine sonship is not the result of a gradual 
psychological development. Jesus did not, little by little, 
through progressive knowledge of God and continued con- 
duct pleasing to God, come to the conviction that he was in a 
unique sense the Son of God. And still less than inward 
reflection did external circumstances, such as the eager Mes- 
sianic expectation of his contemporaries or his own successes, 
help to awaken and more and more to develop and strengthen 
his consciousness of divine sonship. No, before such an 
evolution could in any case have begun, Jesus’ consciousness 
of divine sonship was complete in the tender years of child- 
hood. 

It is evident, however, that in these circumstances it also 
cannot be called merely a moral consciousness of divine son- 
ship. As every human ethical relation is developed and 
strengthened and grows gradually through moral thinking 
and acting, so the unique ethical relation of Jesus to the 
Father, which our critics like to call the divine sonship of 
Jesus, could only have germinated in his youth, grown in 
his adolescence, and have come to maturity and full develop- 
ment in complete manhood. It contradicts all the laws of the 
psychology of children that a boy of twelve years, who had 
been brought up in the humblest, most ordinary and most 
obscure circumstances, should feel himself exalted above all 
men, and actually know that he was the Son of God in a 
unique ethical sense. Liberal critics remark very ingenuously 
in regard to the words of the twelve-year-old boy: “ Here a 
premature consciousness of divine sonship and of vocation is 
taken for granted.’’? Certainly the natural, human explana- 
tion can make simply nothing out of such an early conscious- 
ness of divine sonship. It must either, in defiance of all 
criticism, declare the passages in the Gospels bearing on the 
subject ungenuine, or concede that the consciousness of 
divine sonship in the child Jesus was not inculcated and 
acquired but was innate, because it was present before and 
above any moral development; in other words, that it con- 
sisted not of a merely ethical, but of a physical, or rather a 
metaphysical relation. 

The mere fact of the existence of a consciousness of divine 
sonship in the child Jesus already reveals the glaring un- 
naturalness of the natural explanation of this consciousness. 


1 Bernhard Weiss, Leben Jesu, i, 279, 4th ed. 
2 Wilhelm Hess, Jesus von Nazareth in seiner geschichtlichen Lebens- 
entwicklung, 5 (Ttbingen, 1906). 


2 





The Divinity of Christ tn bis Lite 271 


If we, in addition to this, consider the depth and the import of 
the consciousness of divine sonship in the twelve-year-old boy 
the last doubt disappears. Jesus claims to be the Son of the 
heavenly Father precisely in that physical sense in which he 
passed in the world as the son of Joseph. To the definite 
words of Mary, ‘“‘ Thy father and I,’’ he makes the equally 
definite explanation, ‘‘ my Father” in heaven. The tertzwm 
comparationis is not an ethical, but a physical, fatherhood. 
Just for the reason and only for the reason that God in the 
proper, physical sense is the Father of the child Jesus is 
this child exalted above the mere sonship characteristic of 
creatures which connects him with Joseph and Mary. Asa 
creature, Jesus should have spared his mother and foster- 
father the anxiety and trouble which he caused them by 
remaining in the temple. The words, “ How is it that you 
sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my 
Father’s business?’’ would appear very unchildlike in his 
mouth if Jesus were merely a human child. No gentle child 
would have allowed itself to speak and act in such a way 
towards its parents. 

The ethical divine sonship of the human child Jesus, which 
is asserted by our opponents, required above all that he 
should not neglect his duty towards his parents. For such 
an offence is equivalent to an injury to God, and includes, 
therefore, the denial of his alleged ethical filial relation to God. 
Only by reason of the fact that Jesus is the Son of God 
physically, and hence is himself God, do his earthly parents 
become subject to him, and he can say with full right : “ Why 
do you treat me like a mere human child? Do you not know 
that I, as the Son of God, am raised above all human rela- 
tions?’’ Well considered, therefore, the conduct of the child 
Jesus in the temple and his announcement that he is God’s 
Son are comprehensible only if Jesus is in the full and proper 
sense of the words the Son of God and also God. By the sup- 
position of a merely ethical divine sonship, the scene in the 
temple would be inadmissible, in fact—may I be pardoned the 
expression—immoral. The explanation of the freethinkers 
invalidates itself. 

Against this at most one objection could be raised—the 
possibility that Jesus, although merely human, had been 
instructed by God in his earliest years in regard to his future 
Messianic vocation, and that he, relying on such a super- 
natural revelation, had felt himself exalted above the usual 
childish, human relations and obligations, and had already 
then assumed the réle of the Messiah. In fact, there are not 
wanting critics who take refuge in the supposition that Jesus 
received his vocation “conveyed to him by revelation in a 
condition of ecstasy. The beginning and the ending of his 
Messianic consciousness, and therefore those of his con- 


272 Christ and the Critics 


sciousness of divine sonship also, pertain to the transcen- 
dental.’’? 

We do not need, however, to prove that the freethinker’s 
view, which contests, on principle, all revelation, and wishes 
especially to explain the self-consciousness of Jesus as some- 
thing purely natural, cannot be seriously entertained. But, 
apart from that, it is impossible that God should appoint a 
boy as his ambassador and let him make his appearance as 
the Messiah. Moreover, not one of the Evangelists looks 
upon the episode in the temple as a scene pertaining to the 
Messianic vocation. All the Gospels place the beginning of 
the Messianic activity in the mature years of Jesus’s life. 
Even Luke, who has preserved for us the incident with the 
twelve-year-old Jesus, remarks later. expressly: “‘ Jesus was 
beginning about the age of thirty years’’ his Messianic 
public appearance and-«activity (Luke iii, 23 and parallels). 
Finally, even our opponents are unanimously of the opinion 
that the Messianic consciousness of Jesus had its beginning 
and the commencement of its development only with his 
baptism. The consciousness of his divine sonship at the age 
of twelve has in itself nothing at all to do with the Messianic 
consciousness. The former appears much earlier and inde- 
pendently of the latter. Son of God and Messiah cannot, 
therefore, properly be described as equivalent expressions, as 
is claimed by the school of Loisy. On the whole, every 
explanation which applies to the Saviour’s consciousness of 
divine sonship only the standard of human relations fails 
completely. Already the child Jesus in the temple reveals a 
consciousness which must be considered, in view of its origin 
and import, as a strictly metaphysical divine sonship. 


3. Commencement of the Revelation of the Son of God 
to the Disciples. 


Almost twenty years elapsed before Jesus expressed himself 
further about his divinely human person. It is as though he 
wished to iift the veil no more from the mystery which is so 
difficult for mankind to comprehend. Yet, after the Baptist 
had publicly acknowledged him to be the ‘Son of God (John 
1, 34), after the voice from heaven had sounded, “ This is my 
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased ’’ (Matt. iii, 17), after 
the tempter had divined in him the Son of God, and those 
possessed of devils had hailed him as the Son of God (Matt. 
iv, 1-11), and the first disciples had joyfully greeted him as 
such (John i, 41, 45, 49)—although certainly without appre- 
hending the deep significance of the divine sonship—Jesus 
felt himself compelled to unveil more and more the idea of 
the Son of God. This took place first in the masterful inter- 


1 Wilhelm Schulz, Protest. Monatshefte, 443 £. (1906). 


Pi 
‘ 
cf, 
* ‘ 
4 : 
r - ' 





Che Divinity of Christ in His Lite 273 


view with the Pharisee Nicodemus. An honoured teacher, 
Nicodemus belonged to that minority of the pharisaical party 
which drew near to the Saviour to a certain degree so long 
as he made no especially high demands upon their faith. By 
his benevolent sentiment and high education Nicodemus was 
capable of gaining a deeper insight into the person of Jesus 
than was the case at that time even among the disciples. 

In the first place, the Pharisee frankly acknowledges the 
standpoint of himself and of the group that shares his views 
in regard to the Saviour: ‘“ Rabbi, we know that thou art 
come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs 
which thou dost unless God be with him ”’ (John ii, 2). He 
sees, accordingly, in the Saviour some teacher sent by God— 
a prophet. Jesus takes up this acknowledgement, as a start- 
ing-point, in order, in a wonderful dialogue, which in method 
adapts itself to the usages of the school of pharisaical Rabbis, 
to lead his questioner from that commencement up to the 
heights of his divine and Messianic revelation. 

Recognized as an ambassador from God and a prophet, he 
directs the conversation immediately to the central idea, which 
is the import of the whole prophetic revelation and the aim of 
all the doctrinal teaching in Israel—namely, the kingdom of 
God and the Messianic revelation. He unfolds to the aston- 
‘ished “‘ master in Israel’’ the fundamental requisites for the 
foundation of the Messianic kingdom and the fundamental 
conditions for entering into that kingdom, and thereby makes 
always more clear his claim to be not only a prophet, but the 
prophet—the God-appointed Messiah of the world (John iii, 
3-10). 

This being taken for granted, he now prepares the way for 
the proper knowledge of his Messianic person. In opposition 
to the hybrid idea of the Rabbis, who expected in the Messiah 
merely a man illumined and favoured by God—a ‘‘ son of 
God” in the sense of our liberal theologians—Jesus declares 
that he is a transcendental, supermundane and heavenly Being. 
The Messianic perception of God which he brings to men, he 
draws from his own personal knowledge, not from a revela- 
tion and communication by the grace of God. The divine 
message which he brings from heaven, and tne profoundest 
mysteries of the Godhead which he discloses, he has seen with 
his own eyes. ‘“‘ Amen, amen, I say to thee that we speak 
what we know, and we testify what we have seen’’ (John 
iii,11). 

He who is thus acquainted with heaven, and knows every- 
thing pertaining thereto, from direct observation, must evi- 
dently have been there. And, in reality, Jesus declares, by 
referring to Daniel’s prophecy of the Son of Man, that he was 
in heaven before his life on earth, that he came down from 
heaven and that he will return again to heaven—in a word, 

I. 18 


274 Christ and the Critics 


that he is a heavenly being. ‘‘ No man hath ascended into 
heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of Man 
who is in heaven’’ (John iii, 13)... Thereby the modern 
liberal idea of the Messiah and Son of God, which sees in 
Jesus only a man especially favoured by God, is at once 
excluded. 

Jesus, however, goes a step further, and lays before 
Nicodemus the keystone of the gradually developed revelation 
of his person. After having elevated his person, his will and 
his existence above everything merely human and mundane, 
he now lifts himself also above all created beings both in 
heaven and on earth, and affirms positively his essential, 
metaphysical, divine sonship. He plainly declares the Son of 
Man to be the only begotten son of God whom the Father has 
sent into the world. It is true, the expression “the only 
begotten Son of God ”’ in itself allows always the double mean- 
ing—ethical sonship through the gracious selection and adop- 
tion of the man Jesus instead of a child, or essential sonship 
through the communication of the divine nature. But in the 
peculiar connection in which the designation “only begotten 
Son of God’’ here stands, the first meaning is not to be 
thought of. Jesus hir self excluded it in advance by declaring 
precisely his superhuman nature, and by representing himself 
as a heavenly being, who had existed with the Father before 
all worlds. In fact, he already positively referred to his 
participation in the divine spiritual nature by ascribing to 
himself in his life on earth a direct knowledge and perception 
of God and of the divine: “ We speak what we know and we 
testify what we have seen.’’ Now he takes up this thought 
again and reveals fully its divine content. Not only must the 
world believe on the only begotten Son of God because his 
knowledge and his words proceed from a personal vision of 
God, but the world must also believe on the Son of God 
because he is the whole import and object of divine faith. 
And, accordingly, blessedness and eternal life are not only 
announced to believers through the only begotten Son of God, 
but the world becomes blessed through him, and in him 
possesses eternal life. ‘‘ As Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever 
believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. 
For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have 
life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world to : 


1 Jewish tradition held firmly to the real pre-existence of Daniel’s Son 
of Man in accordance with the Book of Henoch xlviii, 6, ‘‘ For this 
purpose the Son of Man was selected and hidden in him (God) before i 
the world was created, and he will be with him to all eternity.” See~ 
Paul Fiebig, Der Menschensohn, Jesu Selbstbezeichnung mit besonderer 
Berticksichtigung des aramaischen Sprachgebrauches, 122 (Tubingen 
and Leipzig, 1901). 





Che Divinity of Christ in his Vite 275 


judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. 
He that believeth in him is not judged; but he that doth not 
believe is already judged, because he believeth not in the name 
of the only begotten Son of God ’”’ (John iii, 14-18). It would 
be absolute blasphemy if an ordinary human being, were he 
ever so gifted by divine grace, should use such language. 
Only an essentially divine man can speak thus of himself. 

It is true, some exegetes, among them recently also Johannes 
Belser,’ doubt whether the last quoted passages are to be 
regarded literally as the words of Jesus, or as the reflections 
of the Evangelist. Yet this doubt rests really only on the 
arbitrary supposition that Jesus at such an early stage and in 
the presence of a Pharisee could hardly have had such a deep 
insight into the mystery of his divinity—a view which does 
not require to be refuted. But even if it were well grounded 
and just, the interpretation which we have given would not 
thereby be at all weakened. For what John makes the Saviour 
say in this passage, Jesus Christ said repeatedly, later on, 
in other passages of the Gospel of John. In his report of the 
conversation with Nicodemus, John confirms, as Belser him- 
self remarks: “the essential import of the utterances of 
Jesus. . . . The words of the Evangelist are really nothing 
but the words of Christ, which we meet with in the sub- 
sequent discourses reported by John.’’? 

Not only that. We encounter them in substance also in the 
discourses of Jesus given by the synoptists (Matt. xi, 27; 
Permer Grex seo -axxi, ie Luke: x,21). 4. Whoeéver, therefore, 
like the liberal critics, appeals to the synoptists, excluding 
John, will be taught by them that Jesus on other occasions 
and before other hearers spoke substantially the same words 
that he uttered to Nicodemus in the wonderful conversation 
by night. 

Thus, on a par with that conversation, in respect to time 
and content, is the revelation of himself which Jesus made to 
the seventy-two disciples on their return from their first mis- 
sionary effort. The messengers of the Gospel joyfully 
related to their master the miracles which they had performed 
in his name. Then Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and broke out into 
a loud and deeply touching prayer, in which he thanked the 
Father and glorified him because he had hidden the kingdom 
of God with its blessings from the wise and prudent of this 
world, and had nevertheless revealed it to the simple and to 
babes. Then he turned to the disciples with the words: “ All 


1 Das Evangelium des hl. Johannes, 107 (Freiburg, 1905). On the 
other side are Schegg, Schanz, Fillion, Keil, Weiss, Knabenbauer, etc. 

2 Belser, pp. 107, 110. 

3 Matt. xi, 25; Luke x, 17. See H. Schuhmacher, Dze Selbstoffen- 
barung Jesu bei Matt., xi, 27 (Freiburg, 1912); Leop. Kopler, Dze 
qohannetsche Stelle bet den Synoptitkern und die Gottessohnschaft Jesu, 
in Theol. Quartalschrift, 1913-1914. 


276 Christ and the Critics 


things are delivered to me by my Father, neither doth anyone 
know the Father, but the Son and he to whom it shall please 
the Son to reveal him ” (Matt. xi, 27). These words are found 
not only in Matthew; Luke transmits them exactly the same 
in substance, in spite of a small variation: ‘‘ All things are 
delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, 
but the Father; and no one knoweth who the Son is, but the 
Father, and who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the 
Son will reveal him” (Luke x, 22). 

This joyful utterance of Jesus gives us a surprisingly deep 
insight into his consciousness of divine sonship and his most 
intimate relations to the Father. ‘All things are delivered 
to me by my Father.” Jesus thinks here probably first of 
the power which he has received from the Father to work 
miracles and to overcome the kingdom of Satan. For he had 
himself, shortly before,.given this power to the disciples, and 
now the seventy-two come to him with the joyful statement 
that they had been able in his name actually to have dominion 
over sickness, death and Satan. The Master takes occasion 
from this to lead his disciples a step further, and to declare 
to them that the Father has given him not only the sphere 
of divine power, thus far tested, but really divine omnipotence. 
‘All things are delivered to me by my Father,’’ or, as he will 
express himself subsequently: “ All power is given to me in 
heaven and in earth’’ (Matt. xxvii, 18). Even our most 
pronounced opponents, like Heinrich J. Holtzmann,} Loisy,? 
Richard A. Hoffmann,? and Eduard von Hartmann,* see 
themselves compelled to acknowledge that Jesus in this 
passage thinks himself in full possession of divine omnipo- 
tence. 

But the words of Jesus are not exhausted by these citations. 
Among the “all things’’ which are delivered by the Father 
to the Son is not only omnipotence but also omnisctence— 
absolutely divine knowledge. Not only because Jesus says 
universally and without reservation, “all things,’’ but because 
he still expressly adds: “ No one knoweth the Son, but the 
Father, neither doth anyone know the Father, but the Son 
and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him.’’ The 
knowledge and the fulness of truth and of the divine nature in 
the Son is so infinite that only the Father can fathom it— No 
one knoweth the Son, but the Father.’’ On the other hand, 
the knowledge of the Son is so perfect that he and he alone 
comprehends and fully grasps the divine knowledge and 
nature of the Father, and that all the divine knowledge and 
divine perception of his creatures flows from the divine know- 


1 Neutestamentliche Theologte, i, 274 f. (Freiburg u. Leipzig, 1897). 

2 Evangelium und Kirche, 63 (Miinchen, 1904). 

3 Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu nach den dret ersten Evangelien, 25 
(KOnigsberg i. Pr., 1904). 

4 Das Christentum des N. 7., 66, 111 (Sachsa i. Harz, 1905). 





— >. > 


The Divinity of Christ in his Wife 277 


ledge of the Son, as from an inexhaustible source. ‘‘ No one 
knoweth the Father, but the Son and he to whom it shall 
please the Son to reveal him.’’ ‘“ The Son,’’ remarks Loisy, 


“recognizes only God, the Father, as perfect, and precisely 
for the reason that he is the Son, exactly as God, the Father, 
only knows Christ, his Son, because he is the Father—God. 
The fundamental thought is the same as in the passage in 
John : ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten 
Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
Binet 

In a word, the Son has a godlike, divine knowledge of the 
Father, precisely as the Father also has a divine knowledge 
of the Son. The knowledge of both, that of the Father and 
that of the Son, is identical; both are equally divine and 
equally infinite—two immeasurable suns, which mutually 
illumine each other. 

Jesus is, therefore, conscious of possessing the two attri- 
butes of nature and action, which belong to God alone, and in 
which the nature, the activity and the life of God are merged— 
omnipotence of will and power, and omniscience of intellect 
and perception. There can, therefore, be no more talk of 
his being a mere man whom God, out of grace and compas- 
sion, has endowed more richly than other human beings. The 
unlimited divine knowledge and power of the Son can have 
their representative and find their explanation only in the 
divine nature of the Son of God. 

This becomes still clearer through the absolute universal 
equality, which, according to what has been said, exists 
between Father and Son. No more explanations and proofs 
are needed, but simply an unprejudiced examination of the 
words of Jesus, in order to gain the positive impression that 
Jesus was conscious that the Father is as the Son, and the Son 
as the Father, with the single exception of the personal rela- 
tion conditioned by fatherhood and sonship. In other words, 
there exists between Jesus and the Father in the closest, 
natural sense that relation which exists between the Father 
and his only begotten Son—equality according to nature, 
difference in respect to the two persons. It detracts nothing 
from this that Jesus says, “ All things are delivered to me by 
my Father.’’ On the contrary, every son must speak so of 
his father. He has everything from the Father, his nature 
as well as the personal relation, which distinguishes him from 
the Father and at the same time unites him with the Father. 

That Jesus claims to be the Son of God, as set forth in our 
text, in this and in no other sense, the best known critics in 
the camp of our opponents do not dare to deny. Gustav 
Dalman, who investigates the words of Jesus only from the 
standpoint of the philologist, writes: ‘‘ Between Father and 


1 L’Evangile et VE glise, 47; H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 418 (1901). 


278 Christ and the Critics 


Son there exists such a unique, complete and mutual relation 
that, of necessity, others can gain a share of this full know- 
ledge of the Father only through the mediation of the Son. 
The two sentences about the knowledge of the Son by the 
Father and about that of the Father by the Son are not to be 
divided and interpreted separately. They are to be regarded 
merely as a formal oriental expression for the reciprocity of 
perfect knowledge. . . . That which is true of a father and 
son in general is at once applied to Jesus and his heavenly 
Father. Here also the relation to God which was peculiar to 
Jesus is one that cannot be transferred or changed. ... It 
appears to be bound up with his nature.” Contemporaneously, 
Edmund Stapfer, the liberal-protestant theologian of Paris, 
writes : “ Let us recall the great statement of Jesus, ‘No one 
knoweth the Son, but the Father.’ I say that on the strength 
of these words it is impossible to define Jesus. He remains 
exalted above and outside of all subtleties, or better, above all 
the impossibilities of metaphysics; and he retains by reason of 
these words, ‘ No one knoweth the Son, but the Father,’ an 
incomprehensibility, which is one of the surest signs of his 
divinity, and is a necessary element for all true worship.’ 
Harnack, with no less frankness, acknowledges that “a formal 
equality of Father and Son, who are separated only by their 
names, and a relation between Father and Son, which never 
had a beginning and remains always the same, are now 
expressed [in the words of Matthew and Luke].... If 
Matthew has already written thus, then his own christology 
resembles very closely that of John in one of the most im- 
portant points [the divinity of Jesus], even if the passage 
is interpreted more conservatively.’’* Alfred Loisy also is 
ready to concede that ‘in the words, ‘No one knoweth the 
Son, but the Father, and no one knoweth the Father, but the 
Son,’ the actual divinity of the Son is taught.’’* “The 
equality of Christ with eternal truth is declared therein. .. . 
The mutual knowledge of Father and Son is not represented 
as a relation which has come into existence in time and is 
now realized; it has rather the immemorial character of the 
analogous utterances which one finds in the Fourth Gospel; 
it does not establish the pre-existence of Jesus, but rather 
takes it for granted.’’® 

Now, however, that the liberal critics have seen the im- 


1 Die Worte Jesu, 232 f. 

2 La mort et la résurrection de Jésus-Christ, 340, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1808). 

3 Sriche und Reden Jesu, 210, 211 (Leipzig, 1907). Thereby Harnack 
also demolishes the interpretation which he gives to the same text in his 
Wesen des Christentums, 81, which Loisy had refuted and declared to 
be ‘a factitious and superficial explanation of the divine sonship of 
Jesus ”; Loisy, L’Evangtle et P Eglise, 41-44. 

4 Autour d'un petit livre, 130. 

5 Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 194, 909 (1907). 





Che Divinity of Christ in this Lite 279 


possibility of interpreting the passage in the Gospels other- 
wise than in the sense of the true divinity of Jesus, this 
passage must also at once be called by them unauthentic, and 
for the simple reason that in it the divinity of Jesus is taught, 
and because it destroys the jugglery of the liberal exegetes. 
Loisy does not feel inclined to seek for the proof of the 
unauthenticity of our text, but relies simply on his funda- 
mental principle that all those texts must be unauthentic 
which contain the divinity of the Son, or in any way put 
the Son on an equality with the Father.’ By virtue of this 
principle, the words contained in Matthew and Luke cannot 
be the words of the Saviour, but were subsequently ascribed 
to him, as a wrongful justification of the oldest faith of 
the Church in the divinity of Christ.? Because these words 
in the Gospels remind one of the poetically conceived utter- 
ances in the Psalms and Prophets, they are supposed to repre- 
sent an old Church poem.* Already before Loisy, Brandt* 
and Pfleiderer® had resorted, in their extreme embarrassment, 
to the same supposition. Their “critical’’ attempt was, 
however, either ignored or directly repudiated by their own 
partisans, since these words of the Gospels in their poetical 
form are not unique in the utterances of Jesus; on the con- 
trary, not a few utterances of his are so framed.® 
Wellhausen,’ Paul Wilhelm Schmiedel,* and after them in 
particular Harnack,® seek, therefore, another way out of the 
difficulty. Forced to the confession that the text quoted is 
entirely authentic, and “ belongs to the best sources of in- 
formation about Jesus that we possess ’’!°—namely, the so- 
called Discourses of Jesus, from which it passed into the first 
and third Gospels, they try to break off from it at least a 
fragment. The portion, “ No one knoweth the Son, but the 
Father ’’ (according to Matthew), or “ No one knoweth who 
the Son is, but the Father ’’ (according to Luke), did not have, 
according to them, its origin in that oldest source, but was 
brought in from some other.** Therefore, this portion does 
not contain the absolutely authentic words of our Lord! 
Nevertheless, no critic can bring forward a single argument 
to prove that the Discourses did not contain this portion; nor 


1 Les Evangiles synoptiques, i, 243. 

2 T’Evangile et TEglise, 41; Autour dun petit livre, 130; Les Evan- 
giles synoptiques, gog. 3 L’Evangile et VE glise, 45-46. 

4 Evangelische Geschichte, 561 f., 576 f. (1893). 

5 Urchristentum, 1, 435, 576, 667 (1902). 

6 Harnack, Striche und Reden Jesu, 191 (Leipzig, 1907); cf. Fritz 
Barth, Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu, 264 f. (Giitersloh, 1907). 
Against Loisy, especially Lepin, Jésus, Messte et Fils de Dieu, 323-332. 

7 Das Evangelium Matthat, 57 f. (1904). 

8 Protest. Monatshefte, 2 ff. (1900); Das vierte Evangelium, 48 
(Tiibingen, 1906). 

9 Spriche und Reden Jesu, 189-216. 

10 Harnack, 7zd., 215. 11 Harnack, zd., 192. 


280 Christ and the Critics 


is it possible to prove it, for we are entirely in the dark about 
the Discourses themselves. If it be conceded, however, that 
the passage in dispute was not taken from the Discourses, 
but was introduced from some other source, it does not at all 
follow from this that it is not just as truly an utterance of the 
Lord as the whole remainder of the text. The Sayings and 
Discourses of Jesus are also, according to Harnack, only the 
second source from which the Gospels of Matthew and Luke 
are derived. The question whether both these Evangelists 
took our text exclusively from the Discourses, or have made 
use of still other sources for it, is merely a problem pertaining 
to the history of manuscripts, and has nothing to do with the 
credibility of the Gospel report. That credibility would be 
endangered only if the whole, complete text in question had 
not from the first existed in the Gospels themselves. Now, 
however, Harnack writes; after investigating the manuscripts 
and the testimony of the Church Fathers: ‘ All our witnesses 
for Matthew and for Luke have it. The most obvious, because 
the simplest, supposition, therefore, is that Matthew brought 
it into his text.’’! Because, on the other hand, one single 
manuscript? of Luke has by chance omitted the words, “ No 
one knows who the Son is,’”’ these words are said not to have 
been written by Luke at all; and for that reason they are said 
not to have been written really by Matthew also; indeed, the 
whole passage in which they are found is to be regarded as 
questionable and as furnishing no more proof in favour of the 
divinity of Jesus. The theologian Fritz Barth, of Bern, thus 
disposes of this unheard-of failure in Gospel criticism : ‘‘ Har- 
nack’s reconstruction of the passage is as little convincing 
as his restoration of the original ‘Our Father,’ and the 
conclusions which Schmiedel draws from the reconstructed 
text completely transform the sense of the passage almost 
into the very opposite meaning.’’ 

It would be incomprehensible how able critics like these 
could adopt such abnormal views, if Harnack had not, at the 
conclusion of his treatment of our Gospel text, made the con- 
fession that he rejects it, not so much because of any critical 
reasons connected with the text, as because the divinity of 
Jesus is expressed in it: “‘ That is indeed sufficient to see 
clearly the historical value of the utterances reported by 
Matthew. . .. The canonical interpretation of the utterance 
is Johannine and [therefore!] untenable.’’* In precisely the 
same way David Friedrich Strauss also had previously de- 
clared : “ This utterance, which in the first and third Gospels 
stands quite isolated, suggests to us a fundamental view 


1 Harnack, 7d., 204. 2 Cod. Vercell. 
8 Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu, 264. Equally sharply is Har- 


nack’s attempt repudiated by E. Kiihl, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 
oe 


4 Harnack, of. cit., 210, 211, note 2. 





The Divinity of Christ tn his Life 281 


similar to that of the fourth Gospel, and appears therefore 
as an addition—the idea of Jesus . . . to exalt himself above 
the human,” and must on that account be rejected.! Such is 
“ unprejudiced ”’ criticism ! 


4. Progress of the Revelation of the Divine Sonshtip to the 
Disciples and People in Galilee. 


The revelation of the divine sonship of Jesus moves in ever 
widening circles. Towards the end of his Galilean activity it 
already addresses itself to the great masses of the Galilean 
people. 

It is true, Jesus may not yet lead them into those depths of 
the mystery of the divine sonship into which he, according to 
our text, allowed the seventy-two disciples to gaze. The people 
possessed then about that degree of knowledge concerning 
Christ which the Pharisee Nicodemus had when he addressed 
himself to the Saviour. They regarded the Saviour as a 
prophet. Some saw in him more than an ordinary prophetic 
figure, and extolled in him a specially endowed ambassador 
of God who was to precede the real Messiah. Sometimes 
the multitude let itself be so carried away by the miracles of 
Jesus—though for a time only—that it hailed him as the 
expected national Messiah. This view of the people was 
most forcibly expressed after the miraculous increase of the 
loaves of bread at Bethsaida, when the multitude wanted to 
proclaim him as the Messiah-King with the cry: “‘ This is of a 
truth the prophet that is to come into the world’’ (John vi, 14). 

Upon this Jesus takes occasion to give to the people in a 
wonderful discourse precisely the same instruction which he 
had once imparted to Nicodemus, who was of their opinion : 
Jesus is the true Messiah sent by God; as such, he is not a 
mere man, but a truly supernatural being, who had existed 
previously in heaven, who by his own power saves mankind, 
and is himself in his own person the salvation and eternal 
life of men. “ This is the work of God, that you believe in 
him whom he hath sent. . . . My Father giveth you the true 
bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which 
cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world. ... 
I am the bread of life. . . . This is the will of my Father 
that everyone who seeth the Son and believeth in him may 
have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day. 

Not that any man hath seen the Father, but he [the 
Son] who is of God, he hath seen the Father. Amen, amen, 
I say unto you, he that believeth in me hath everlasting life. 
I am the bread of life . . . the bread which cometh down 
from heaven. ... I am the living bread which came down 
from heaven ’”’ (John vi, 29-51). 


1 Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk, 203 f., cf. 198 ff. (1864). 


282 Christ and the Critics 


This eucharistic prophecy and superhuman instruction in 
regard to the Son of God were too lofty for the people and 
even for most of the disciples. They wanted to recognize in 
Jesus only a son of God who had developed upward from mere 
humanity, and who, in spite of his divine sonship, still re- 
mained a mere man (John vi, 42); in a word, the son of God 
and the sonship of God in the sense of our liberal critics. 
On this rock their faith was wrecked. “ After this, many of 
his disciples went back and walked no more with him’”’ (John 
vi, 67): : 

ey the Twelve remained and stood this test of their faith. 
To the question of Jesus, ‘ Will you also go away?’’ Simon 
Peter answers: “ Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the 
words of eternal life, and we have believed and have known 
that thou art the Christ, the Son’ of God” (John vi, 68-70). 
To the renewed inquiry of the Lord, ‘‘ Whom do you say that 
I am?” Peter answers with the equally definite acknowledge- 
ment: “ Thou art Christ, the son of the living God ’’? (Matt. 
xvi, 16). And Jesus makes this testimony of Peter his own 
by praising it and pronouncing Peter blessed on account of it 
(Matt. xvi, 17-19). 

What is, however, the import of this? In any case, it is 
certain that first of all and principally the Messiahship of 
Jesus is thereby pronounced. Not only does Peter’s acknow- 
ledgement in regard to the Messiah stand in all four Gospels 
in the foreground, but Mark and Luke relate absolutely 
nothing but this acknowledgement. “Thou art the Christ ’’ 
is the simple declaration in Mark’s Gospel (viii, 29); while in 
Luke the statement is substantially the same, ‘‘ Thou art the 
Christ [ Anointed] of God’’ (Luke ix, 20). In John, the title 
“Son of God’’ is not positively certain, from the critical 
standpoint, but, on the other hand, the title ‘‘ Messiah ”’ is 
certain. And even Matthew, who gives the definite addition 
‘““ Son of the living God,’’ nevertheless finally lays again chief 
emphasis on the Messiahship. For, at the conclusion of his 
report, he informs us that the Saviour forbade the Twelve to 
speak publicly of what had happened, yet formulates this pro- 
hibition in such a way that it refers to the Messiahship only: 
“Then he commanded his disciples that they should tell no one 
that he was Jesus the Christ’’ (Matt. xvi, 20). Peter’s 
acknowledgement at Cesarea Philippi is, therefore, un- 
doubtedly to be regarded primarily as an acknowledgement 
of Jesus as the Messiah. 

What, however, does the future prince of the Apostles 
think of the Messianic person and nature of Jesus? Is the 


1 According to one reading, ‘‘ The Messiah, the holy one of God.” 

2 The scene described by John vi, 27-70, and the synoptical descrip- 
tion in Matt. xvi, 16, etc., Mark viii, 29 and Luke ix, 20, stand not 
only in close connection, but might be actually parallel passages. See 
proof of this in Seitz, Das Evangelium vom Gottessohn, 282. 





The Divinity of Christ in this Wite 283 


Saviour for him a mere man, who conceives of the Messianic 
vocation according to the rabbinical-Jewish or modern liberal 
view, or is a heavenly, metaphysical nature united with the 
man Jesus in one person, as the Christian faith supposes? 
The answer really cannot be doubted. For fully two years 
Peter had been a witness of the struggle of Jesus with that 
humanized idea of the Messiah. In his parables, in the 
demands which he makes on his hearers and in his whole 
activity Jesus had more and more emphasized his super- 
mundane and absolutely divine origin and nature. And now 
he has just concluded the mighty discourse in which he 
designates himself in direct terms, and also in the metaphor 
of the bread from heaven, as the Messiah who, in accordance 
with his origin and nature, emanates from heaven, who came 
to earth only for the purpose of leading men to heaven, and 
who is himself the eternal life of men. The Jews, who, a 
moment before, had still given enthusiastic testimony to his 
Messiahship (John vi, 14), turn away from him indignantly 
because he requires them to believe in the superhuman, 
metaphysical origin and nature of the Messiah Jesus. Yes, 
even the disciples become disloyal to him at such a demand. 
Only the Twelve stand firm. In contrast to Jewish unbelief, 
which saw in the Saviour only an extraordinary prophet (Matt. 
xvi, 14 and parallels), or was willing, at most for a moment, 
to recognize him as a human Messiah (John vi, 14 and 65-67), 
Peter from the midst of the Apostles raises his voice in the 
decisive confession : “‘ Thou art Christ; thou art the Messiah, 
the anointed of God!’’ In such circumstances is it sup- 
posable that he should have acknowledged the Master as the 
Messiah merely in the Jewish-messianic sense of the term? 

It is impossible, and Jesus himself assures us of the con- 
trary. He had already on many occasions heard himself 
hailed as the Messiah by the disciples, by those possessed by 
devils, by those whom he had healed and by the astonished 
multitudes, without ever showing any special joy on that 
account. He was then hailed only as the supposed human 
Messiah. Now, however, he congratulates Peter on his 
confession of the Messiah, and derives this from a purely 
supernatural revelation, in contrast to the Jewish, human 
conception. He declares, therefore, unequivocally, that Peter 
believes in the superhuman, metaphysical personality of the 
Messiah—in the Messiah who has come from heaven, such as 
Jesus had long and with ever increasing clearness in word, 
work and life proclaimed himself to be. It is true, to con- 
clude from Peter’s subsequent conduct, he was still unable 
to grasp the idea of the full divinity of the Messiah—Jesus ; 
but, even if he merely surmised it, it 1s, nevertheless, con- 
tained in his confession which comprised the entire divine 
Messianic announcement of Jesus. 


284 Cbrist and the Critics 


Therewith he throws also a clear light upon his additional 
designation of Jesus as the ‘Son of the living God.’’ It is 
of little importance whether we have to do here merely with 
an added remark, which is equivalent to the Messianic indica- 
tion, or whether ‘Son of God’’ stands as an independent 
title beside that of the Messiah. According to what has been 
said, the expression ‘‘Son of the living God’’ cannot be 
apprehended, in the sense of liberalism, as an ethical or 
theocratic son of God—that is, as a mere man who, in conse- 
quence of his better knowledge and the love of God, assumes 
the task of establishing the ‘‘ kingdom of God.” If the 
Messiah in this passage is regarded as thoroughly super- 
human and metaphysical, the same thing must be true of the 
“Son of the living God.’’ The height of Peter’s faith in the 
Messiah indicates the height and depth of his faith in the Son 
of God. 

If, therefore, we fix our attention upon this alone, without 
the other, we come to the same result. The Son of God, as 
Peter acknowledges him, stands in complete contrast to the 
Son of Man, as the Jews conceive of him. ‘‘ Whom do men 
say that the Son of Man is?’’ asks Jesus. The disciples 
answer : ‘‘Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and 
others Jeremias or one of the prophets’’ (Matt xvi, 14 and 
parallels). Jesus said to them: ‘‘ But whom do you say that 
I am?’’ Then Simon Peter answered and said: “ Thou art 
Christ, the Son of the living God.’’ The antithesis is as 
perfect as it possibly could be—the Son of Man in the question 
of Jesus; the Son of God in the answer of Peter. The 
antithesis lets us “ perceive clearly that he who calls himself 
only the Son of Man is, in reality, the opposite of that— 
namely. the Son of God. 1 

If we take the title “ Son of Man, ’*» as Jesus applied it to 
himself, as an expression of his true humanity and at the same 
time of his supernatural origin and nature, then the Son of 
God, standing above the Son of Man, must evidently be the 
Son of God in the proper sense of the word. Should one, 
however, wish, with the liberal school, to understand by the 
term “Son of Man’’ merely the man Jesus, the contrast 
between Son of Man and Son of God would be not less 
marked, since the Gospel ‘assures us that the Son of Man 
is at the same time the Son of God, and that the real humanity 
of the Saviour harmonizes with his divine origin.’’? 

Only by this supernatural conception of Peter’s acknow- 
ledgement of the Son of God does it become comprehensible 
that Jesus attributes this to a supernatural, divine source: 
“Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood 


1 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 208 (1898); H. J. Holtzmann says the same 
in Lehrbuch der N. T. Theologte, i, 257 f. (1897); and Loisy, Les 
Evangiles synoptiques, ii, 3 (1908). 2 Loisy, zd, 





Ube Divinity of Christ in his Life 285 


hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.” 
If Peter can have his confession, not from men, but only from 
God, it necessarily exceeds the earthly, carnal views of men, 
who represented the Saviour as a mere man. However in- 
complete the conception may have been which Peter formed 
of the Son of the living God, his Son of God certainly sur- 
passed any merely human standard. But if his Son of God is 
to any extent more than a man, then the liberal critics also 
must concede that it is “a metaphysical idea, a name for a 
divine being, who is other than men in general, and by nature 
has originated from God ’’1—1.e., is the essential Son of God. 

“Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.’’ In contrast 
to the great number of the sceptical and half-believing mass 
of the Galilean admirers of Jesus, Peter means by these words, 
“Thou art the true, actual Son of God, and therefore the 
Redeemer of the world.’’ It is only a literal repetition, a sub- 
stantial confirmation and a deeper, clearer and profoundly 
spiritual conception of his confession at Cesarea Philippi, 
when Peter subsequently asserts his own faith and that of 
his fellow Christians in “ Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour ’”’ 
Caketeri, 1): 

In fact, in the camp of our opponents the voices are in- 
creasing in number which confess that in Peter’s confession 
at Cesarea the Messiahship and divine sonship are un- 
hesitatingly expressed in the sense of Christian faith. Among 
others, Van Manen,? H. J. Holtzmann,*? G. Dalman* and 
very recently even Alfred Loisy® speak to the same effect. So 
soon, however, as sceptical science deigns to make the con- 
fession that faith and the Gospel harmonize in this point, at 
once the usual assertion is made, that the Gospel comes here 
into conflict with actual history, and that the Evangelists, in 
particular Matthew, have let themselves be prejudiced in this 
account by the christology of the oldest Church. 

This accusation is justified only by the fact that the tran- 
scendental confession of Peter concerning the Messiah and 
the Son of God, and respectively that of Jesus himself, who 
approves of it, stands in contradiction to new rationalistic 
theology about Jesus. Formerly Loisy asserted that this 
passage in the Gospels contains nothing more than the idea 
of the theocratical human Messiah, on which account its 
genuineness and credibility were not to be doubted.® But 
now Loisy is compelled to concede that this Gospel passage 
teaches clearly the metaphysical divine sonship of Jesus, and 
hence it is to be rejected as unhistorical and unworthy of 


P. W. Schmiedel, Prot. Monatshefte, 296 (1598). 
Theol. Tijdschrift, 184 (1894). 

Lehrbuch der N. T. Theol., i, 257 (1897). 

id., 208. 

Les Evangiles synoptiques, 11, 3. 

L’Evangile et PE glise, 42, 57. 


arr Wn eH 


286 Christ and the Critics 


belief.t Konrad Furrer, in an equally arbitrary manner, allows 
the words of Jesus to Peter to stand or fall according as they 
appear to testify for or against his own doctrinal opinion.? 
Against such a “critical ’’ windmill it would be merely labour 
lost to tilt. 

The liberal investigator, J. Weiss, who is certainly above 
suspicion, rightly characterizes it as ‘‘ arbitrary radicalism ” 
to try to invalidate the historical accuracy of Peter’s testi- 
mony,*® and Oskar Holtzmann says of the answer of Jesus to 
this confession : ‘‘ What he [Jesus] replied to the confession 
is given us only by Matthew (xvi, 7-19); but the import of the 
words guarantees their genuineness.’”* 


5. Intensification of the Revelation of the Son of God to the 
People and Disciples in Judea and Jerusalem. 


The testimony to Jesus as the Son of God had caused much 
disturbance in Galilee. The mass of the people, and even 
most of the disciples, abandoned the Saviour; but the Twelve 
came out of the crisis, on the contrary, strengthened in faith. 
Jesus now turned with them to the country of Judea, in order 
there, and, above all, in Jerusalem and in the temple itself, 
to proclaim before the people, priests and scribes his divine 
mission and divine sonship. He did this preferably at the 
great religious national festivals, to which the Jews from all 
parts of the country came in crowds. Already during the 
Galilean period of his activity he had once gone to the Holy 
City for a high festival, and on this occasion had begun his 
divine revelation. The time had not then come, however, to 
announce his divine sonship in metaphysical terms. He seized 
first upon the practical, palpable and therefore more com- 
prehensible side of the subject; he testifies and proves by 
miracles that he does the works of his Father, is equal to his 
Father in heaven in respect to power and efficiency, and 
therefore is the divine Son of the divine Father. ‘‘ Amen, 
amen, I say unto you... what things soever the Father 
doth, these the Son also doth in like manner. For the Father 
loveth the Son, and showeth him all things which himself doth. 
sh For as the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life, 
so the Son also giveth life to whom he will. . .. Amen, 
amen, I say unto you that the hour cometh, and now is, when 
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that 
hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, so he 


1 Les Evangiles synoptiques, ii, 3. 

2 Das Leben Jesu Christi, 178, 2nd ed. (1905); similarly, Wilhelm 
Hess, Jesus von Nazareth, 60 f. (1906). 

3 Das dlteste Evangelium, 50 (1903). 

4 Leben Jesu, 253 (Tiibingen, 1901); also, W. Bousset, Jesus, p. 78, 
3rd ed., says: ‘* We have the right to regard this report as historically 
credible.” 





| Tbe Divinity of Christ in this Wite 287 


hath given to the Son also to have life in himself ’’ (John v, 
fee2Ty/25)): 

The Son does all that the Father does, even the Father’s 
works of omnipotence. He does all this in accordance with 
his own will, like the Father, because he has seen it when 
with the Father, and he is able to do it all because he has in 
himself life, power and omnipotence like the Father. This 
announcement made by John, which Jesus subsequently 
repeats again and again in different forms, is only another 
variety of that revelation of his divinity to the seventy-two 
disciples, recorded in the synoptic Gospels: ‘‘ All things are 
delivered unto me by my Father, and no one knoweth who 
the Son is, but the Father, and no one knoweth who the 
Father is, but the Son.’’ 

The same ability and power, proceeding from the same 
inward, divine source, which belongs to the Son as well as to 
the Father, prove the divinity both of the Son and of the 
Father. His Jewish hearers, in spite of their obstinacy, were 
well aware that Jesus declared himself to be in this sense the 
essential Son of God: ‘“‘ Hereupon therefore the Jews sought 
the more to kill him, because he did not only break the 
Sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making 
himself equal to God’’ (John v, 18). 

In reality, from this time on, the ferment which had begun 
among the people in Judea and the increasing hostility of their 
leaders press forwards ever more certainly to the catastrophe. 
Yet this was not to break out until Jesus had given a still 
more universal and incontrovertibly true proof of the divinity 
of his mission and of his nature. The Saviour makes use of 
the fact of his presence at the most brilliant annual festival 
at Jerusalem to take up again his teaching on this point. 

In several violent discussions in the temple during the days 
of the Feast of Tabernacles, he gives further testimony in 
regard to his work and his person (John vii and viii). Amid 
continual confirmations of the more palpable proofs already 
given of his equality with God, he now at the same time 
promotes the ideal, doctrinal knowledge of his metaphysical 
divine sonshtp. 

In the course of the dialogue the Pharisees put to him the 
question most plainly, ‘‘ Who art thou?” Jesus gives the 
profound answer: “ The beginning, who also speak unto 
you’’ (John viii, 25). Already just before he had given the 
unmistakable declaration: ‘‘ You are from beneath, I am 
from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world’’ 
(John viii, 23). He is supermundane and superhuman, not 
merely in his Messianic vocation, but also in respect to his 
origin and nature. Jesus answers the demand of the Pharisees 
to know something more precise regarding this nature and 
origin by characterizing himself as absolutely supernatural 


288 Christ and the Critics 


and divine, as the principle of life and the first cause of all: 
‘““T am, as I have always told you from the beginning, the 
origin of all that exists.’”’ The Evangelist adds expressly 
that Jesus thereby spoke of his divinity, but that he was not 
understood by the Pharisees (John viii, 27). 

As the origin of the universe, Jesus not only shared before 
all time the glory of the Father before the world with all its 
visible and invisible creatures existed (John xvii, 5), he had 
shared it from all eternity. ‘“‘ Abraham, your father, rejoiced 
that he might see my day,’’ he said further to the Jews; “ he 
saw it and was glad.’’ Then they mocked him, saying: 
“Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen 
Abraham?’’ Jesus said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to 
you, before Abraham was made, I am”’’ (John viii, 56-58). 
Now, if he, who was not yet fifty years old, had already lived 
before Abraham—that is, thousands of years previously—then 
he must have had, besides and before his human mode of 
existence, still another, older and supermundane existence and 
nature. And if he says of this existence and nature, ‘“ I am,”’ 
not ‘I was,’’ or ‘‘I became,’’ as Abraham, does not this 
mean precisely that for him there is no time, that he is from 
eternity? Does he not by this say of himself what God has 
said of himself and alone can say of himself, “I am, that I 
am ’’—the eternal being? 

And thus also the Jews actually understood the Lord. They 
were convinced that Jesus meant to make himself equal with 
God. On that account they tried to inflict upon him the 
punishment of stoning, assigned for the blasphemer (John 
vili, 59). And Jesus does not retract his words. He therefore 
confirms the fact that he really professed to be God and, in so 
far as that goes, was understood correctly by the people. 

In order to remove any doubt of the correctness of this 
apprehension, he announces to the people that he is the light 
of the world. “lam the light of the world. He that followeth 
me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life ” 
(John viii, 12). Thus speaks Jesus at the end of the Feast of © 
Tabernacles, which recalled the miraculous leading of Israel © 
through the. desert and the revelation of God in the cloud of | 
light. For God is light. As the sun furnishes material light, — 
so God is the original abode and source of spiritual light— — 
truth. In many passages of the Old Testament, as well as of ~ 
the New, and in extraneous biblical literature, the being of ~ 
God is represented as light. ’ 

Exactly so does Jesus conceive of his nature and his sig- — 
nificance for the world. .ie is the essential, living and life- — 
giving saving truth, from which all salvation comes and in _ 
which all salvation exists. Again and again he impresses — 












1 Julius Grill, Untersuchungen tiber die Entstehung des vierten Evan- — 
geliums, i, 259-271, 308-312 (Ttibingen, 1902). 


The Divinity of Christ tn his Lite 289 


this lesson on the Jews, and represents it readily by com- 
municating, in close connection, to the man who was born 
blind, bodily light, as a symbol of the light that is spiritual 
and divine (John ix). Nor does he conclude the announcement 
of his person and his nature without again issuing to the blind 
masses of the people and their blind leaders the solemn warn- 
ing: ‘‘ Believe in the light, that you may be the children of 
light. . . . He that believeth in me, doth not believe in me, 
but in him that sent me. And he that.seeth me, seeth him that 
sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever 
believeth in me may not remain in darkness’’ (John xii, 36, 
44-46). 

No man, no divinely sent prophet—therefore also no son of 
God in the sense of the modern rationalists—can justly char- 
acterize himself as the Light of the World, or assert that he 
dispenses light out of his own abundance. Whoever does 
that must feel himself to be God. For that reason, therefore, 
Christ also, as the Son of God and Light of the World, 
identifies himself 1mmediately with the Father—with God. 
“Whosoever seeth me, seeth the Father.’’ 

Light is life and imparts life. Light appears in the biblical 
revelation and, above all, in the words of the Saviour, as the 
effect and the cause of life, as a force at once bestowing life 
and conferring vitality. 

God is, therefore, called the highest and only possessor and 
giver of this force, and also simply ‘‘ the Life,” ‘‘ the Living 
One.’’ In contrast to the lifeless idols of the heathen, and 
to creatures who are in need of life, the true God is defined 
in all the Holy Scriptures of both the Old and New Testa- 
ments as the essential Life and the Maker of the living.? 
The term “ Living God’’ was the most unequivocal and most 
popular expression for the monotheistic idea of God. Jesus 
also loves to call his Father “ the living Father,’’ who “ hath 
life in himself ’’ (John vi, 58; v, 26). 

But he immediately adds that the Son also is “ living,”’ 
like God, and that he has, like the Father, life in himself: 
“As the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the 
Son also to have life in himself’’ (John v, 26). Henceforth 
this doctrine occurs again and again in the most varied ex- 
pressions, and is illustrated by many metaphors and examples, 
until it is finally moulded in the significant christological form : 
“T am the way, the truth and the life’’ (John xiv, 6). Quite 
unmistakably the Lord thus applies to himself the most 
popular and also in itself the most convincing attribute of 
divinity—absolute Being and Life. 

Moreover, he is an absolute Dispenser of life. As his 
Father is the all-powerful Lord of natural life, and the in- 


1 See the exhaustive treatment of this subject by Grill, Untersuch- 
ungen uber die Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums, i, 225-259. 


I. 19 


290 Christ and the Critics 


finitely good Author and Accomplisher of the supernatural life 
of salvation, so the Son also is the personal principle of life 
and salvation for mankind. He proclaims himself to be the 
fountain of “ living water,’’ which “ springs up into life ever- 
lasting’’ (John iv, 10); the Vine, from which everlasting 
vitality goes into the branches—that is, into the believers who 
are united with him (John xv); the “ Bread of life’’ (John 
vi, 35, 48), the bread which came down from heaven (John vi, 
51, 59), and “ gives life to the world’’ (John vi, 33, 54). In 
divine omnipotence he can afhrm, ‘‘ Amen, amen, I say to 
you, if any man keep my word, he shall not see death for ever ” 
(John viii, 51). “I give them [my sheep] life everlasting, 
and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck 
them out of my hand” (John x, 28). 

As a proof that he is the supernatural, absolute principle 
of.the life of mankind, he awakens Lazarus from physical 
death, and, turning to Martha, expressly says: “I am the 
resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, although he 
be dead, shall live; and everyone that liveth and believeth in 
me shall not die for ever. Believest thou this? She saith to 
him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ, the 
Son of the living God, who art come into this world’”’ (John 
xa eases). 

In fact, this is the only possible answer to the Lord’s 
question. Whoever of himself creates physical life, and from 
himself imparts eternal spiritual life, and within himself bears 
essential life, cannot be a created being. ‘The vivifying 
action of the power streaming forth from the Son is not 
explicable merely by an intermediary action of the Son, but by 
the absolute character of the foundation and fulness of his life, 
willed and ordained by the Father himself. Whoever, like 
Jesus, restores the dead to life, must essentially be creative, 
life-giving power.’’? 

Eternal First Cause, Light and Life, like the Father—there- 
fore consubstantial and one in nature with the Father. ‘I and 
the Father are one” (John x, 30). In this the christological 


preaching of Jesus to the people reaches its climax. These — 
words are not to be understood merely as indicative of the — 
moral unity between Father and Son, but of the consub- 
stantiality of both. Ffather and Son are one in the essential os 
principle, which lies similarly at the basis of the divine activity — 


of the Father as well as of the Son. They are one in the full 
metaphysical sense, so that Jesus can assert : “‘ The Father is 


in me and I am in the Father’’ (John x, 38). The consub- : 


ad 


stantiality and oneness are thus so clearly declared that the 


Jews, shocked by the expression, cried out: “‘ We stone thee _ 
for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest — 
thyself God’’ (John x, 33). Accordingly, the common people — 


t Grill; of. ¢it., p. 288, 





The Divinity of Christ in bis Vite 291 


also understood the Saviour to claim by nature to be God— 
God in the same sense as the Father in heaven is God, in 
contrast to every creature. And Jesus affirms that this is the 
sense of his words, and that the people have understood him 
entirely correctly (John x, 33-39). 

Modern opponents of the divinity of Jesus also cannot resist 
the same impression. They have only one thing to reply to 
it : that this revelation of Jesus to the Jewish people is related 
only by John. But, quite apart from the fact that the distrust 
of John, as we have demonstrated already, is not justified, the 
portrait of the Saviour drawn by John agrees in-«all its prin- 
cipal features with that of the synoptists. Thus, in particular, 
John’s account of the teaching of Jesus to the people in regard 
to the Son of God is traced upon a synoptical foundation. 
Professor Fritz Barth, of Bern, has to confess: ‘‘ We have 
not the right to reject this contribution of John; for, although 
the ideas in the fourth Gospel may be more firmly grounded 
and clearer, ... his portrait of Christ is, nevertheless, 
essentially the same.’’! Precisely for the last period of his 
life, in which Jesus, according to the fourth Gospel, made to 
the Jewish people the conclusive revelations of his divinity, 
the synoptists also have preserved the corresponding episodes, 
which reveal the same truth not less clearly and with still 
greater lucidity to the people. 

In view of his coming condemnation, Jesus, at the begin- 
ning of Passion Week, relates to the Jews the parable of the 
vintners: ‘““ There was a man, an householder, who planted a 
vineyard and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a 
press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and 
went into a strange country. And when the time of the fruits 
drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they 
might receive the fruits thereof. And the husbandmen, laying 
hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned 
another. Again he sent other servants, more than the former ; 
and they did to them in like manner. And last of all he sent to 
them his son, saying: They will reverence my son. But the 
husbandmen, seeing the son, said among themselves: This is 
the heir; come, let us kill him, and we shall have his in- 
heritance. And, taking him, they cast him forth out of the 
vineyard and killed him’’ (Matt. xxi, 33-39; Mark xii, 1-12; 
Luke xx, 9-19). 

No one could fail to understand the meaning of this parable. 
The householder typifies God, the vineyard signifies Israel, the 
husbandmen are the Jewish people, the servants are the line 
of prophets, and by the ‘“‘son,’’ the “one son, most dear to 
him,’’ is meant Jesus himself (Mark xii, 6). Jesus, therefore, 
in contrast to the prophets, is not a servant, but the Son of 
God, and, moreover, the only, dearly beloved Son. If he were 


1 Die Hauptprodleme des Lebens Jesu, 266, 3rd ed. (Giitersloh, 1907). 


aga Christ and the Critics 


merely a human Messiah—that is, a son of God in the figura- 
tive sense—he would then be only the greatest and latest in 
the ascending series of prophets. The contrast drawn between 
the servants and the only, dearly loved Son would then be 
quite absurd. 

The rights pertaining to the Son reveal this still more 
clearly. ‘‘ The position of the Son is . . . considered as one 
of right, which lays claim to the whole family property. In 
the case of the Son of God this can be a matter only of world 
supremacy, and, indeed, such a one as no Jewish emperor 
could exercise, but as God exercises it.’’4 Men, even the most 
esteemed, and prophets, have only duties as servants, but no 
rights. The Son, however, by reason of his nature, his birth 
and origin, comes into the absolute, divine joint-possession 
and co-regency of the world. There is evidently here no 
question of a mere adopfive relation, but only of the Son of 
God, Jesus, in the full metaphysical sense of the word. 

Our opponents are not able to withstand this impression. 
Some of them, therefore, try again to dispute the genuineness 
of the parable of the vintners. First Jilicher affirmed that 
this parable was a pure allegory; that Jesus, however, never 
made use of the allegorical, but only of the parabolic form of 
discourse, and therefore he cannot have uttered the parable 
of the vintners.” It is true, the untenableness of this theory 
of the Marburg scholar has been strikingly proved even by 
liberal critics ;* but that in no way prevents Alfred Loisy from 
printing it anew,* and he asserts with the greatest confidence 
that the parable of the vintners “belongs, it is true, to an 
ancient tradition, which originated even before the final edit- 
ing of our Gospels; yet it is not warranted to be an utterance 
of Christ. ... In its traditional form the allegory of the 
vintners appears to be a fragment of Christian apologetics.’’® 
Because the allegory of the criminal vintners sounds “‘ Johan- 
nine ’’—that is, clearly declares the divinity of Jesus—it can- 
not be an utterance of the Lord, although it is attributed to 
the Lord unanimously by all three synoptists, and is also con- 
sidered even by non-catholic critics, almost without exception, 
as a genuine utterance of Jesus. ® | 

The High Priests and Pharisees felt themselves so hard hit 
by this parable of the vintners that they resolved to put the 


1 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, i, 230 f. 

4 jiilicher, Die Gletchnisreden Jesu, Introduction (Freiburg i. Br.), 
1886), 

: 8 Feet! others by Chr. A Bugge, Die Hauptparabeln Jesu (1903); 
P, Fiebig, Altjuidische Gletchnisse und die Gletchnisse Jesu (1904). 

4 Etudes evangéliques, 57 (1902); Les Evangiles synoptiques, ii, 318 
1908). 

: i ae Evangiles synoptiques, l.c. 

6 Especially by H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der neutest. Theologte, 
i, 266; G. Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, i, 230; Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 419 
(1901); O. Holtzmann, Das Leben Jesu, 333-335 (1901); B. Weiss, Das 
Leben Jesu, ii, 423, 4th ed. (1902). 





The Divinity of Christ in bis Life 293 


Saviour to death at once (Matt. xxi, 45 and parallels). Then 
Jesus came with fearless candour into their midst, and once 
more put to them the decisive question : “ What think you of 
Christ? Whose sonis he? They say to him, ‘ David’s.’ He 
saith to them, ‘ How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, 
saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand, 
until I make thy enemies thy footstool?’ [Ps. cix, 1]. If 
David then call him Lord, how is he his Son?’’ (Matt. xxii, 
42-45 and parallels). 

Protestant criticism has, for the most part, tried to interpret 
these words of the Saviour as if Jesus wished to deny that 
the Messiah was to descend from David, and that he himself 
was a descendant of David.+ Nothing is, however, more un- 
justifiable than such a supposition. Even Albrecht Schweitzer 
remarks: ‘‘ Far from repudiating in these words the descent 
from David, Jesus, on the contrary, presupposes it in his 
case.’’? The conviction that the Messiah is David’s son was, 
in fact, the common ground from which Jesus, as well as the 
Jews, proceeded, in order to prolong the discussion concern- 
ing the Messiah and concerning Jesus as the Messiah. It had 
never occurred to a Jew to question the fact that the Messiah 
would be a descendant of David, for the descent from David 
had been predicted too often and too clearly in the sacred 
books as a characteristic of the Messiah. 

If Jesus had wished to disturb that belief, he would at once 
have stood before the people as a false Messiah and a heretic. 
On the contrary, he allows himself to be greeted and honoured 
as the “son of David.’’ It is true, this Messianic official title, 
“son of David,’’ did not designate merely a descendant of 
David, but, above all, the Messiah himself. Yet, ‘as a matter 
of course, it was thereby presupposed that the Messiah 
actually was a descendant of David, and Jesus would have 
hardly assumed that precise title if he had not found in his 
physical descent from David, according to prophecy, the 
verification of the appellation.’’> 


1 Wilh. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 130 f.; H. J. 
BPCOte Mann. ene User yi ta .. 1 heolo rie, %, 244 ff, (1897) ee Pa We 
Schmidt, Geschichte Jesu, 116, 156 f. (1899); Johannes Weiss, Dre 
Predigt Jesu vom Retche Gottes, 160 (1900); O. Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, 
64, 310, 353 f. (1901); O. Pfleiderer, Urchristentum, i, 633, 2nd ed. 
(1902); Stark, Prot. Monatshefte, 308 (1902); E. Schtirer, Das mes- 
sianische Selbstbewusstsein Jesu Christi, 17 (1903); Weinel, Jesu tm 
19 Jahrhundert, 285 (1903); Ed. von Hartmann, Das Christentum des 
N. 7., 55-60 (1905); W. Hess, Jesus von Nazareth, 97 (1906). 

2 Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 392 (1906); similarly, G. Dalman, Dze 
Worte Jesu, i, 234, 260 (1898); H. Zimmermann, Der histortsche Wert 
der altesten Ueberlieferung von der Geschichte Jesu im Markus- 
evangelium, 89 ff. (1905); Hans H. Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, 425, 2nd ed. 

1901). 
3 Wendt, of. cit., pp. 424-426. The real descent of Jesus from the race 
of David is historically beyond all doubt. Dalman, of. ct?t., 262-266, and 
especially Peter Vogt’s exhaustive monograph, Der Stammbaum Christi 
bei den heiligen Evangelisten Matthaus und Lukas (Freiburg, 1907). 


294 Christ and the Critics 


But, however firmly the Saviour held to his Davidic origin 
and Messianic dignity, just as emphatically did he teach a 
supernatural origin and a divine dignity as the Son of God, 
far exceeding the former. And, in fact, the latter is to be con- 
ceived of as a true, essentially divine sonship, just as the 
former is to be regarded as a true and essential Davidic son- 
ship. This alone is the meaning of the disputation of Jesus 
with the Pharisees. As the Son of God, he is the “ Lord ’’ 
of David, his ancestor; as the Son of God, he sits at the 
right hand of Jehovah and rules in divine power and glory. 
And only in his quality as Son of God is he able to be the 
Messiah—David’s son. ‘“ He finds in the fact that David 
himself speaks of the Messiah, not as his son but as his 
Lord, a proof of the fact that what constitutes in the Messiah 
the basis and essence of his Messianic significance is not his 
descent from David, but “something else much higher. The 
meaning of Jesus is that this something higher can be only the 
relation which the Messiah has to God—his divine sonship.’’! 
‘““For one who reads the words of Jesus without any dogmatic 
prejudice, no other meaning can result than that the Messiah 
is in reality the Son of one higher than David—namely, 
God.’’? Even Alfred Loisy interprets this passage in the 
Gospels thus: “Jesus is not only the son of David, but the 
Son of God, and this latter sonship outshines the former.’’? 
This is, however, sufficient for Loisy again to find fault* with 
the text of the Evangelist, which is, nevertheless, recognized 
by all critics as authentic.° 


6. Conclusion of the Revelation of the Divine Sonship to the 
Disciples and Judges in View of his Death. 


After Jesus had announced his divine sonship to the people 
and their leaders without any enduring success, he addressed 
himself, in the last hours before his death, exclusively to the 
narrower circle of his disciples. Ever since the days of 
Cesarea Philippi, the latter believed in his supernatural 
origin, and apprehended more and more also the divinity of 
the Master. Now they were already so far advanced that 
Jesus could not only impress upon them the fact of his divine 
nature, but could partially disclose to them also his divine 
spiritual relation to the Father. For the occasion of the 
quiet, sacred ceremony of farewell, the Lord had intentionally, 
as he himself says (John xvi, 5), reserved the profoundest and 


1 Wendt, of. cit., p. 424. 2 Dalman, Worte Jesu, 234. 
3 Les Evangiles synoptiques, 11, 363; also Le quatriéme Evangile, 
628 (1903). 4 Les Evangiles synoptiques, l.c. 


5 See, among others, H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der N. T. Theol., 
1, 258; Dalman, op. cit., 234; Ed. Stapfer, Za mort et la résurrection 
de Jésus-Christ, 29 (1898); O. Holtzmann, Das Leben Jesu, 353 f. (1901) ; 
B. Weiss, Leben Jesu, ii, 384, 4th ed. 





The Divinity of Christ tn this Lite 295 


most important revelations for his disciples. ‘‘ As one, when 
parting for ever from the friend nearest and dearest to him, 
is impelled to pour into that heart, with which he is so 
intimate, all that perhaps has been concealed within the shrine 
of secrecy, even from him till then, so in like manner does 
the Lord, in this solemn hour of his final instructions, impart 
with unreserved confidence to his disciples all that they were 
able to receive into their minds, not yet exalted, and their 
hearts not yet expanded, by the Holy Ghost.’’? 

The basic thought of the wonderful farewell discourse and 
of the accompanying high-priestly prayer is again, however, 
the further initiation of the disciples into the knowledge of his 
divinity. So greatly does he advance this knowledge in that 
last solemn hour that he can establish a complete contrast 
between the faith of the disciples previously and now: “If 
you had known me, you would without doubt have known my 
Father also; and from henceforth you shall know him, and 
you have seen him’’ (John xiv, 7). Scales fall, as it were, 
from the eyes of the disciples. Working their way out of 
the hybrid light of half-belief into the dazzling sunlight of 
faith, they perceive that they know and behold the Father 
himself in the Son, and the divinity of the Father in the 
divinity of the Son. With ray on ray and flash on flash does 
Jesus light up for them this truth. ‘ He that seeth me, seeth 
the Father also’’ (John xiv, 9)—that is, consubstantiality and 
unity of Father and Son. “I am in the Father and the 
Father in me’’ (John xiv, 11)—essential connection and 
essential permeation. ‘All things whatsoever the Father hath 
are mine... Father, all my things are thine and thine 
are mine ’”’ (John xvi, 15; xvii, 10)—essential community and 
essential reciprocity. The Son does the works of the Father, 
who abideth in him. Whoever does not recognize and behold 
the Son from and in his works, hateth both the Father and 
the Son (John xiv, 10; xv, 24)—co-operation and reciprocity 
in work. He that hateth the Father, hateth also the Son 
(John xv, 23); and he that loveth the Father loveth the Son 
also (John xvi, 27)—complete merging of the interests of the 
Son in the interests of the Father, and vice versa. Jesus could 
hardly have illustrated his divinity more clearly and more 
forcibly. 

And now, after he has opened his heart completely to his 
disciples, and awakened in them the full consciousness of his 
inward, divine life with the Father and in the Father, an 
infinite longing fills him for a return to the glory of the 
Father: ‘‘ And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, 
with the glory which I had, before the world was, with 
thee’’ (John xvii, 5). Only through voluntary humiliation 


1 Paul Keppler, Unseres Herrn Trost. LErklirung der Abschiedsreden 
und des hohepriesterlichen Gebetes Jesu, 3 (Freiburg, 1887). 


296 Christ and tbe Critics 


has the Son come forth from his majesty in the Incarnation 
(Phil. ii, 6 ff). His earthly life and suffering have merely cast 
a veil over his divine glory. This is by nature the inherent 
right and property of the Son from eternity, and will hence- 
forth remain also for eternity. ‘*‘ When Jesus prays, ‘ Glorify 
thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had 
before the world was, with thee,’ Sofa (glory) indicates here 
the splendour of a divinely perfect, vital energy in conformity 
with absoluteness of being (John v, 26)—a splendour in which 
Jesus represented himself in his ante-mundane pre-existence 

s ‘ God in God,’ and which is to come to him again after the 
transition from the physical to the purely spiritual and merely 
divine mode of existence. It is not a matter of the physical 
idea of the splendour of a transcendental substance of light, 
even if this also may have a share in it, but of the all-embrac- 
ing (metaphysical and ethical) idea of the glory of an absolute 
personal life.’’! 

Thus does Jesus utter, on the eve of his passion, in that 
intimate, family circle, the last words concerning the mystery 
of his divinity; although from all eternity the Son of God in 
the metaphysical sense and the possessor of the divine glory 
of the Father, he laid in the hands of his Father his glorious 
vesture, in order to complete his work on earth in a humble 
human form. Now he returns to the Father from his earthly 
pilgrimage in order, as God and Man, to enter again into the 
possession of divine glory, and through it to render his faithful 
disciples also blessed: “‘ That they all may be one, as thou, 
Father, in me and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. 

The glory which thou hast given me, I have given to 
them, that they may be one, as we also are one. . . . Father, 
I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me 
may be with me; that they may see my glory, which thou hast 
given me, because thou hast loved me before the creation of 
the world” (John xvii, 21-24). 

An attempt has been made to diminish the force of the 
revelation of divinity contained in the farewell discourse of 
Jesus, by attributing this discourse to the Evangelist John. 
According to the theory of the liberal critics, John must have 
transformed the farewell thoughts of the Lord, in a free 
theological form, into the powerful address which we now 
possess. Such a subterfuge is, however, as unfounded as it 
is insufficient. Unfounded because, aside from all other 
reasons, the farewell discourse shows itself to be essentially 
an exact reproduction of the Lord’s words.?, Theodor Zahn 
writes significantly : “ In reply to the charge that John some- 


1 Grill, op. czt., p. 316. 

2 The passages ae previously in Peeard to John’s Gospel furnish 
proof of this. See also a short but very good exposition in Reppler’s 
Unseres Herrn Trost, 6-14. 


Che Divinity of Christ in his Lite 297 


times lets the discourses of Jesus pass over a vanishing 
border-line into his own theological style of utterance, it is 
to be remarked that the very contrary can be proved.’’? But 
even if that charge were verified, it would still be insufficient 
to explain away from the farewell discourse the proof for 
the divinity of Jesus. Not only in its “ Johannine’’ form 
which we possess, but in its wonderfully profound contents, 
even to its innermost core, this discourse is Jesus’s own 
revelation of his divinity, and it is absolutely permeated and 
interwoven with it. It remains, therefore, the highest witness 
to the divine consciousness of Jesus, even if it be supposed 
that it has been freely remodelled by John. Only one who 
simply eradicates to the last letter the farewell discourse and 
the high-priestly prayer despotically from the Gospel can 
escape the impression of its complete christological and 
redemptive revelation. 

The disciples were still under the impression of this full 
revelation when the Saviour came before the judges of the 
Sanhedrim for his last testimony to his divinity. Not as if 
he could have let those judges and the surrounding crowd of 
onlookers and agitators see into the depths of his divine 
nature and life which had just been beheld. No; he was 
obliged to begin again, where the incredulity of the Jews 
had remained. He could let fall upon them merely the shadow 
of his divinely human personality. And yet sufficient light 
lay in his shadow to let the judges perceive that he claimed 
to be the true Messiah of the world and the true, supernatural 
Son of God. 

He testifies to this in the most public way and before the 
highest tribunal of the Jewish nation, the competence of which 
Jesus also had recognized (Matt. xxili, 2). The members of 
the Sanhedrim had already been trying for a long time to 
destroy the obnoxious man from Nazareth (John vii, 44; 
Vill, 59; X, 31, 39). Their plans, however, were without 
result, because the hour of Jesus had not yet come (John 
vii, 6). After the raising of Lazarus, their excitement rose to 
such a pitch that the assembled High Council passed a 
formal resolution in regard to the execution of Jesus (John 
Xl, 45-57); and it was not to be long before they succeeded 
in getting him into their hands. Jesus was with all speed 
brought before the High Priest and the assembled Council, 
and the legal procedure against him was begun. 

In the first place, however, it was not the duty of the 
Saviour to make a confession concerning himself, or even 
to let himself be interrogated. Jewish criminal proceedings 
did not aim at obtaining confessions from the accused.* The 


1 Einlettung in das N.T., ii, 564 (Leipzig, 1899). 
2 The Mishna treatise on the Sanhedrim gives information concerning 
the legal proceedings of that body. This treatise was written, it is true, 


298 Cbrist and the Critics 


latter must, on the contrary, be convicted of guilt by means 
of witnesses. Only after at least two witnesses, who had 
been found to be truthful, agreed in regard to the accusation, 
could he be pronounced guilty. If such evidence from con- 
curring witnesses was not at hand, there was, it is true, a 
second means. Jewish law recognized as such the adjuration 
of the accused, in order to wrest from him an avowal. 

So, then, a number of witnesses, hired by the councillors, 
appeared against Jesus, and brought forward many accusa- 
tions, by reason of which he was said to have forfeited his 
life. But their testimony proved to be partly false and partly 
contradictory. A concurring testimony was not to be obtained 
(Matt. xxvi, 59-62; Mark xiv, 55-61). Consequently there 
remained only one other means of securing the condemnation 
of Jesus which had been determined on beforehand—the ad- 
juration or confirmation by oath of the accused. Hence the 
High Priest rises from his seat, puts the Saviour on his oath, 
and addresses to him the greatest, most solemn and most 
decisive question which an earthly court of justice ever put, 
and by the affirmation of which Jesus would forfeit his life: 
“T adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us if thou be 
the Christ, the Son of God.’’ Just as clear and definite as the 
question of the chief judge is the reply of Jesus: “ Thou hast 
said it; and! I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of 
Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming 
in the clouds of heaven.’’? Then the High Priest rent his 
clothes, saying: “ He hath blasphemed. What further need 
have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the 
blasphemy. What think you? But they answering, said, 
He is guilty of death.’’ 


only in the second century after Christ, yet its definitions were applied 
essentially already in the trial of Christ, as customary in lawsuits. See 
the admirable and illuminating monograph by A. Taylor Innes, The 
Trial of Jesus Christ (1899); and Stapfer, Le Sanhédrin de Jérusalem 
au ier stécle, Revue de Theologie, Lausanne, 105-119 (1884); Jelski, Dze 
innere Einrichtung des grossen Synedrions zu Jerusalem (1804) ; Schiirer, 
Geschichte des judischen Volkes, ii, 188-214, 3rd ed. (1898); K. Kastner, 
Jesus vor Pilatus (Miinster i. W., 1912). 

1 The Aramaic scholar, Dalman, in Die Worte Jesu, i, 255, thinks that 
merely the word “ and >in the mouth of Jesus is due to the Greek 
m\nv in Matthew and 6é in Luke, instead of the usual translation 
** yet,”’ ‘* however.’’ In any case, the meaning of the passage remains 
the same. 

2 Matt. xxvi, 62-64; Mark xiv, 61 agrees with Matthew in his account 
with but one slight variation: ‘‘ Art thou the Christ, the Son of the 
blessed God?’’ and Jesus said to him: ‘‘ I am; and you shall see the 
Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming 
with the clouds of heaven.”’ 

3 Matt. xxvi, 65 ff.; Mark XIV, 63 f. agrees: ‘* Then the High Priest, 
rending his garments, saith, ‘ What need we any further witnesses? 
You have heard the blasphemy. What think you? Who all condemned 
him to be guilty of death,’ ” 


The Divinity of Christ tn this Lite 299 


This took place in an extraordinary night session of the 
Sanhedrim. Since, however, in criminal cases a death sen- 
tence could be pronounced only on the day on which the trial 
was begun,’ a second session was appointed for the next day 
at daybreak (Matt. xxvii, 1; Mark xv, 1; Luke xxii, 66).? 
It is true, Jesus appeared there as a blasphemer, already con- 
demned and therefore without legal rights.2 Yet the San- 
hedrists again repeated summarily the adjuration and inter- 
rogation, as well as the condemnation of the Saviour, in order 
to give to the trial a certain appearance of legality. They 
brought him before the Council, and said: “If thou be the 
Christ, tell us.”’ And he saith to them: “If I shall tell you, 
you will not believe me. And if I shall also ask you [in order 
to lead you to a knowledge of the real facts], you will not 
answer me, nor let me go. But hereafter the Son of Man 
shall be sitting on the right hand of the power of God.’’ 
Then said they all: “ Art thou, then, the Son of God?’’ Who 
said: “‘ You say that Iam.’’ And they said: ‘‘ What need we 
any further testimony? For we ourselves have heard it from 
his own mouth’’ (Luke xxii, 66-71). 

Then the whole Council rose, and they led him to Pilate 
(Luke xxiii, 1 and parallels), that the Roman procurator might 
confirm and carry out the sentence in the final tribunal.* It is 
true, the Jews endeavoured to bring up for his condemnation 
accusations of a political nature before the pagan Roman 
tribunal, which, for obvious reasons, did not care to bother 
itself about the alleged religious crime committed by the 
Nazarene (Matt. xxvii, 11 and parallels). But as these proved 
to be invalid, they demanded vociferously that Jesus should 
be put to death in consequence of the religious confession 
which he had just made, and on the ground of the Jewish 
religious law: ‘‘ We have a law, and according to the law he 
ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God”’ 
(John xix, 7). 

This inspection of the three stages of the trial of Jesus 
should be sufficient to give us the invincible conviction that 


1 Schtirer, of. czt., p. 211. 

2 Luke’s account is only of this final session. See proof by Johannes 
Belser, Die Geschichte des Leidens, der Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt 
des Herrn, 282 f. (Freiburg, 1903). Moreover, in regard to form, both 
sessions were illegal : the first, because criminal trials, in which a death 
sentence was possible, could be appointed only in the daytime; the 
second, because the treatment of such cases was forbidden on the day 
preceding a Sabbath or a Feast Day (Sanhedrim iv, 1). 

3 In view of the ill-treatment which the members of the Sanhedrim and 
guards allowed to be committed against Jesus already before the session 
(Luke xxii, 63-65). 

4 Concerning the relation in regard to competence between the Jewish 
and Roman courts—that is, between the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem and 
the Roman governor—in the trial of Jesus, see Th. Mommsen, Rédmische 
Geschichte v, 512, 2nd ed.; Rém. Strafrecht, 240 note (1899); Innes, 
ee, 75 i. 


300 Christ and the Critics 


the Saviour confessed his true divinity before his judges. 
Nevertheless, this is audaciously denied by the liberal school 
of criticism. The question of the High Priest, whether Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God, must, it is said, be interpreted 
from the usual Jewish point of view. The Jews, and, above 
all, the Sadducee, the High Priest Caiphas, had used the 
words ‘‘ Messiah’’ and ‘Son of God’’ as synonymous terms 
for the same idea—namely, a Messianic king of the Jews, a 
man especially beloved and favoured by God, who, precisely 
because of this moral “divine sonship’’ is called to the 
Messianic work, the re-establishment of the Davidical theo- 
cracy. Accordingly, Jesus is said to have claimed to be such 
a “ Messiah’”’ and “ Son of God,’’ and only such.’ 

Now, it is certainly to be conceded, and we have expressly 
demonstrated it, that the Messianic idea of the Jewish con- 
temporaries of Jesus-did not for the most part exceed the 
expectation of a political-theocratic king, and also that the 
expression ‘“‘ Son of God’’ might mean only just this sort of a 
Messiah-king. Yet proof was also given at the same time 
that the Saviour contended against that superficial and worldly 
idea of the Messiah, held by the Jews, with the whole force of 
his words and deeds; that in accordance with his vocation, his 
origin and his nature, he claimed to be the Messiah in the 
supernatural sense of the word; yes, that the idea of the 
Messiah, as personified in him, was precisely identical with 
the divine Messiah. Accordingly, he did not claim the title 
“ Son of God’’ after the standard of the ideas of the Messiah 
common to the Jews at that time, but announced by ever 


clearer and more definite revelations his supernatural divine — 


sonship. A few days before, he had thereby brought the 
masses of the people into a state of great excitement, and 
the crisis which had now taken place was to be ascribed only 
to his super-Jewish and supernatural revelation of the Messiah 
and Son of God. Should he now, all at once, descend from 
the height of his confession hitherto made, and proclaim 
himself as the Messiah of the world and son of God in 
another less divine and indeed thoroughly human, worldly 
and national sense? Everyone can see that that is at once 
unthinkable. 

The confession of Jesus before the tribunal shows itself 


1 Thus argues not only the liberal-protestant school, but also Alfred 
Loisy, L’£vangtle et PEglise, 42, 57; B. Rose, Etudes sur les Evan- 
giles, 105-197 (1902); Hermann Schell, Afologte des Christentums ii, 
310-313, 2nd ed. (1908). Rose and Schell concede, it is true, that only 
the Sanhedrists have understood the answer of Jesus in the above sense, 


while the consciousness of the divine sonship possessed by Jesus himself 


referred to his essential divine sonship. In contrast to his former 
assertion, Loisy now acknowledges—Les Evangiles synoptiques, ii, p. 609 
(r908)—that Jesus reveals at his trial a thoroughly divine consciousness, 
on account of which the reports on the subject given in the Gospels are 
not to be considered as historical. 





Tbe Divinity of Christ in his Life 301 


rather to be a logical revelation of his supernatural Messianic 
consciousness and of his metaphysical divine sonship. Already 
at the first examination Caiphas puts the question: ‘‘ Art 
thou the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the Most 
Blessed?’’ Jesus does not content himself by answering the 
question in the affirmative. In order to exclude any possible 
misapprehension, he expressly declares in what sense he 
wishes to have both question and answer understood. ‘ You 
shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power 
of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven ’”’ (for the world- 
judgement). By these words Jesus unites his present con- 
fession directly with the one which he, shortly before, had 
made to his disciples and the Jews. He had, in connection 
with Psalm cix (Hebrew cx), and with Daniel vii, 13, declared 
that he was that Son of God, who, sitting at the right hand 
of Jehovah, takes part in the divine government of the world, 
and that Son of Man who will sometime come again to judge 
the world with divine power.1. We have already seen that 
Jesus thereby really raises himself above the Jewish notion 
of the Messiah and son of God, and stamps himself as truly 
the divine Messiah and the essential Son of God. Now, 
under a sacred oath, he confirms this consciousness and pro- 
fession of his personality. 

Still more clearly is this the case in the second session of the 
tribunal, described by Luke. Here the Sanhedrim at first 
asks only about the Messiahship of Jesus. “If thou be the 
Christ, tell us.’’ As Jesus confesses himself to be such, and 
adds that the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the 
power of God, the judges understand at once that he thereby 
claims to be equal with God. For this reason they all im- 
mediately ask: “ Art thou, then, the Son of God?’’ And 
upon the renewed answer in the affirmative they condemn the 
Saviour to death as a blasphemer. The crescendo—Messiah, 
divine Son of Man and true Son of God ts contained unmis- 
takably in the words of Jesus. This even very radical critics 
do not overlook. 

According to Gustav Dalman,? “ Jesus is in reality, accord- 
ing to his statement, precisely not the Son of ‘ Man,’ but of 
‘God.’”’ Alfred Loisy? and N. Schmidt* similarly find that 
Jesus uttered, not only in Luke’s Gospel but also in those of 
Matthew and Mark, his complete consciousness of divinity 
before the tribunal. If Loisy, Schmidt and other critics on | 


1 That, together with Dan. vii, 13, the whole passage in Ps. cx is 
referred to by Jesus in his judicial confession, is explained also by 
Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 254, and by O. Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, 374 
1goI). 

2 Die Worte Jesu, 209. 

3 Les Evangiles synoptiques, ii, 609 f. 

4 Article Son of God, section 20, in Cheyne and Black, Excyclo- 
pedia Biblica, vol. 1V, 4701 (London, 1903). 


302 Christ and the Critics 


that account, and only on that account, doubt this report of 
the Gospels, and assert that the synoptists, especially Luke, 
have let themselves be influenced by the belief of their con- 
temporaries in the divinity of Jesus, and have erroneously 
represented the actual course of events at the trial, such an 
‘“‘unprejudiced ’’ criticism truly deserves not a word of refuta- 
tion. Yet even Johannes Weiss! remarks : ‘‘ One may think as 
one will about the literary origin of the text of Luke [regard- 
ing the judicial confession of Jesus], but one ought not to 
reject with scorn the light which it gives.’’ And W. Bousset 
says: “The scene of the trial, in spite of all the objections 
recently brought against it, is in its essence historical.’’? 
It is, moreover, labour lost when the school of freethinkers 
attempts to weaken the confession of the Saviour before the 
tribunal, whether it be in reference to its historical credibility, 
or to its dogmatic import. Even if that confession of Jesus 
in regard to his divine sonship made in his own words did not 
exist for us at all, the members of the Sanhedrim themselves 
and the populace, stirred up by them, give us clear information 
concerning it. They convince us, on the one hand, that they 
wanted to extort from the accused Nazarene the confession 
of his supernatural Messiahship and metaphysically divine 
sonship, and, on the other hand, that they really succeeded 
in obtaining this confession to the fullest extent. 
If we wish to know what the views and intentions of the 
Pharisees, Sadducees, priests and scribes were at the trial 
of Jesus, we must consult again the Gospel and search for 
the real cause of their hatred against the Nazarene. It lies, 
as we again and again have had to prove, in the fact that — 
Jesus abruptly rejected the idea of a worldly and national 
Messiah and Son of God, and offered to them in place of it 
his thoroughly supermundane and divine consciousness. ‘‘ He 
was the Messiah (and Son of God), and claimed to be so, 
but in a sense which seemed to the narrow horizon of con- 
temporary Judaism as blasphemous.’’* Hence the movement 
of hate against Jesus. 
This movement degenerated into an attempt to murder 
Jesus as often as he made the definite declaration that he was 
the real, true Son of God. Ever since Jesus at the feast of 
purification had distinctly uttered this consciousness of his 
divine sonship (John v, 17) for the first time, “the Jews 
sought the more to kill him, because he . . . said God was ~ 
his Father, making himself equal to God’’ (John v, 18). — 
Jesus’ claim to divinity led at times, during the Feast of — 
Tabernacles and on the sabbatical Exhodion Feast, to re- — 
newed efforts to seize the hated Galilean and to stone him ~ 
(John vii, 44; vill, 59). And again, shortly before his trial, 


































1 Die Predigt Jesu vom Retche Gottes, 170 (1900). 
® Jesus, 8, 3rd ed, 3 Dalman, op. cit., 259. 


The Divinity of Christ tn this Lite 303 


at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, an attempt was 
made to murder him, justified by the same testimony that he 
was the real, supernatural Son of God. ‘We stone thee, 
because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God’’ (John 
x, 33); thus spoke the same agitators who soon after were 
to sit in judgement upon Jesus. 

If now, at the tribunal and for the purpose of obtaining a 
sentence of death against him, they despair of every other 
ground of accusation, and if they adjure the Saviour to tell 
them whether he is ‘‘ the Christ, the Son of God” and the 
‘Son of the Most Blessed,’’ the meaning of their question is 
plainly furnished. They certainly aim at tempting him to 
make the same confession of his divine Messiahship and 
supernatural divine sonship, and not merely to the conscious- 
ness of being a national Messiah and a purely human son of 
God, which would have been useless in securing his condemna- 
tion and which had been repudiated by Jesus. 

The Sanhedrists show, then, also by their sentence of con- 
demnation that Jesus had actually made that confession. They 
find in the declaration of Jesus blasphemy, and condemn him 
to death for this reason and no other. In theatrical indigna- 
tion ‘‘ the High Priest rends his clothes and says: ‘ You have 
heard the blasphemy. What think you?’ Who all con- 
demned him to be guilty of death” (Mark xiv, 63 and 
parallels). In a moment the whole excited populace take up 
the cry, so that it echoes through the city, and rings in the 
ears of the Roman procurator : ‘‘ We have a law; and accord- 
ing to our law he ought to die, because he made himself the 
Son of God ’’ (John xix, 7). 

It is true, the Sanhedrists endeavour not to present to the 
pagan governor blasphemy alone as a reason for condemna- 
tion. They knew only too well that Pilate would neither mix 
up in their religious actions, nor pay any attention to the 
theocratical law of the Jews, which decrees the penalty of 
death for blasphemy. Therefore they appeal, not only to the 
crimen lese majestatis divine (blasphemy), but to the crimen 
lese majestatis humane, alleged to have been committed by 
Jesus—an insult and an act of lése-majesté against the 
Emperor. They say: “ We have found this man perverting 
our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, saying that 
he is Christ the king ’’ (Luke xxiii, 2). As, however, the latter 
accusation proves to be absolutely without foundation and 
false (Luke xxiii, 3 and parallels), the Jews in desperation go 
back to the real reason—blasphemy, on account of which they 





1 That Pilate will not meddle with the application of the religious, 
Mosaic, penal law, but lets merely the Roman State law constitute the 
tule of his court proceedings is perfectly clear, and is proved from the 
demand of the Procurator in John xviii, 31. When the Jews insist upon 
the death of Jesus by appealing to their law, Pilate answers ironically : 
‘* Take him you, and judge him according to your law.’ 


304 Christ and the Critics 


have condemned the Saviour, and through the force of this 
they wish to obtain from Pilate the execution of the death — 
sentence. ‘We have our law, and according to our law he 
ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.’’ 
Blasphemy, and blasphemy alone, is, therefore, the only legal 
reason which the Jews finally and seriously invoke for their 
death sentence on Jesus.+* 

Now, this confession of Jesus in the tribunal, before the 
Sanhedrists and the unbelieving Jews, could, in any case, 
appear as blasphemy only if Jesus attributed to himself divine 
qualities, a divine nature and a metaphysical divine sonship. 
The Mosaic Law orders in the case of a blasphemer: “ The 
man that curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that 
blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die. All 
the multitude shall stone him’”’ (Lev. xxiv, 15, 16). However 
this law might or may be interpreted, it is clear, in any case, 
that it was not applicable to Jesus if he proclaimed himself 
merely as the Messiah in the sense of the popular Jewish 
expectation—namely, as a theocratical king and a son by the 
grace of God. 

Such a Messiah and such a claim to divine sonship did not 
blaspheme or dishonour the name of Jehovah in any way. 
Otherwise the Messianic faith of the Jewish people and the 
Sanhedrists themselves would be liable to a charge of blas- 
phemy. Of this our opponents are as firmly convinced as we. 
‘““A claim to be the Messiah is in itself, especially in respect 
to Jewish justice, no crime.’’* ‘“ The belief of Jesus that he 
was the Messiah might pass for madness or foolish conceit, 
but not for blasphemy, so long, at all events, as the opinion 
existed that a man of human origin would sometime appear 
as the Messiah.’’* ‘The mere affirmation of Messiahship 
could not certainly have led at once to a death sentence on 


1 Hermann Schell, Apologie des Christentums, ii, 311, 2nd ed. (Pader- 
horn, 1908), very naively asserts: ‘‘ In what sense the High Priest and 
the Sanhedrim understood the divine sonship is proved by the effect of 
their accusation on Pilate and on his wording of the'sentence. It was 
a question in the accusation of his claim to be ‘ King of the Jews,’ not 
of his claim to a divine nature.’’ Does not Schell really see, then, that 
the High Priests and the Sanhedrim accuse Jesus as King of the Jews 
only from a hypocritical motive, although the Saviour himself rejects 
this accusation so emphatically? And did not ‘“‘ the effect of their 
accusation on Pilate ”’ consist in the fact that the Roman considered the 
attempt to blacken Jesus with the assertion that he was King of the 
Jews to be a thoroughly defamatory and inaccurate denunciation (Luke 
xxiii, 3 and following)? Finally, also the ‘‘ wording of the sentence ” 
does not prove that the Sanhedrists had the impression that Jesus 
claimed to be King of the Jews. Only with biting irony at the expense 


of the Sanhedrists (John xix, 20-22), who had charged the Nazarene a 


falsely with this political lése-majesté, did Pilate write above the Cross: 
‘* Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”’ 

2 P. W. Schmidt, Die Geschichte Jesu, 169 (Freiburg, 1899). 

8 Oskar Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, 375 (Tiibingen, 1gor). 





The Divinity of Christ in this Lite 305 


Jesus. . . . No one would ever have made a crime of blas- 
phemy out of a simple assumption of the title of Messiah.’’! 
‘The law had no prohibition and no rule in the case of anyone 
declaring himself the Messiah; it was not forbidden.’’? ‘“ Ac- 
cording to Jewish law, the fact of perjury or blasphemy, which 
is to be punished by stoning, and in presence of which the 
judges rend their garments, can only be conceded if an impre- 
cation or abuse of the name of God is really uttered. There- 
fore, the mere assertion of Messiahship is, according to Jewish 
notions, not blasphemy at all.’’? 

The assertion of Jesus that he was the Messiah and the Son 
of God, according to the Jewish, human conception, could at 
most have given occasion for an ecclesiastical trial, in which it 
would have had to be proved, on the ground of the acts of the 
Saviour, whether he was the true Messiah or a false one. 
Only the proof of his false Messiahship would have justified 
a condemnation.* But nothing at all in the trial of Jesus is 
said about anyone’s having called for the signs of the Messiah 
and of having tested them in the case of the hated Nazarene. 
On the contrary, the Sanhedrists appealed, as a legal ground 
for condemnation, only to the confession of Jesus himself, that 
he was the Messiah and the Son of God, who would sit at 
the right hand of God and would come again sometime as 
Judge of the world. This testimony in regard to himself 
forces from them, without any further consideration, the cry 
of indigation: ‘‘ He hath blasphemed. What further need 
have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard the 
blasphemy; he is guilty of death.” The blasphemy worthy 
of death lay, therefore, according to the views of the stubborn 
Jews, in Jesus’ confession that he was the Son of God, and 
in that only. 

That presupposes, however, that Jesus, in his estimate of 


1 Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 257. 

2 Adalbert Merx, Die vter kanonischen Evangelien nach threm 4lte- 
sten bekannten Texte. Ubersetzung und Eriduterung der syrischen im 
Sinai Kloster gefundenen Palimpsesthandschrift, 11, i, 394 (Berlin, 
1902). 

° Weed, Das Messtasgeheimnis tn den Evangelien, 74 {. (Gottingen, 
tgo1). Of the same opinion are Wilh. Brandt, Die evangelische 
Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christentums, 64 (1893); Alfred 
Loisy, Les Evangiles synoptiques, ii, 609 (1908); and all the prominent 
modern liberal critics. Only H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der N. T. 
Theologie, i, 265 f. (Leipzig, 1897), and Das messtanische Bewusstsein 
Jesu, 31 ff (Tubingen, 1907), is of another opinion. ‘‘ But he proves 
thereby only his own ignorance of the ideas of Jewish law,’’ remarks 
Dalman pertinently. 

4 Perhaps by an appeal to Deut. xviii, 20-22, where the death penalty 
is prescribed for one who has been proved to be a false prophet. It is 
absolutely impossible that the Rabbis of the time of Jesus should have 
proposed anything lighter in regard to blasphemy and the death penalty. 
The later rabbinical law (Sanhedrim vii, 5) is, on the contrary, much 
more formal, so that finally a death sentence could be only seldom pro- 
nounced on a charge of blasphemy. 

I. 20 


306 Christ and tbe Critics 


himself, “ascribed to himself a grandeur which had never 
been attributed even to the Messiah’’!—a grandeur which 
towered above every merely human conception of the Mes- 
sianic nature, and apprehended the designation “ Son of God ’’ 
in a metaphysical sense. Only if he “ meant that designation, 
Son of God, in a supernatural and metaphysical sense did 
there lie in the utterance of Jesus a detraction from the honour 
of God, and a blasphemous claim to equality with God.’’? 
“To say ‘I am the Messiah’ was no blasphemy. To say ‘I 
am the son of God’ did not mean to utter the name of God 
blasphemously. Only if he did not confine himself merely to 
the moral and religious idea of the sonship, but connected a 
metaphysical conception of it with the expression, Son of 
God . . . only then could the words of Jesus be considered as 
a blasphemy against God.’’* The Sanhedrists saw then in 
Jesus a false prophet, who blasphemed Jehovah, since he him- 
self claimed divine rank, and enticed the people to follow a 
false God (Deut. xiil, 1-4). Such a false prophet should, ac- 
cording to the Law, be killed at once (Deut. xiii, 5, ro), “ lest 
at any time the wrath of the Lord thy God be kindled against 
thee, and take thee [the people of Israel] away from the face 
of the earth (Deut. vi, 15). Hence, the counsel of the High 
Priest Caiphas : ‘‘ It is expedient for you that one man should 
die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not ” (John 
xi, 50). And on this account came the cry trom the furious 
multitude : “ Away with this man. Crucify him’’ (Luke xxiii, 
18, 21). ‘“ We have a law, and according to this law he must 
die, because he made himself the Son of God.’’ 

But since they condemn the Saviour as a blasphemer by 
reason of his own confession, the judges prove officially and 
on oath that Jesus confessed not only that he was the theo- 
cratical Messiah-king and human son of God, but also that he 
was the divine Messiah and the essential Son of God, and that 
he on account of this confession was put to death. 


1) Dahnan, oP.) ctt.,. Dp. 257. 

2 Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis, 75. © 

3 Loisy, Les Evangiles synoptiques, ii, 609. In order to escape the 
‘‘ historically impossible ’’ conclusion (Wrede, 74), that Jesus understood 
the title ‘‘ Son of God ”’ dogmatically and metaphysically, Wrede and 
Loisy deny, at once and without any tenable reason, the credibility of 
these passages in the Gospels. The scene in question is said to have 
been invented by the Evangelist, or to have been retouched to harmonize 
with the faith. 





CHAPTER II 


THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST AFTER 
HIS DEATH 


ITHERTO we have furnished proof that Jesus 
himself, during his mortal life, revealed himself 
as the true Son of God, as very God of very God. 
Not, indeed, in an immediate, lightning-like 
revelation, like a Deus ex machina, who springs 

down from heaven to earth. Rather does his revelation of 
himself stand in wonderfully wise harmony, on the one hand, 
with his human-divine person, in which he approached us, 
and, on the other hand, with the human nature and limited 
mentality of those to whom he announced his divinity. 

Notwithstanding the fact that Jesus claimed to be God, he 
not only had to allow his real and entire humanity to develop, 
uncurtailed, but he was obliged to impose upon himself, in 
testifying to his own divinity, a certain modest and tender 
reticence. In his human nature and through the medium of 
his human nature, he revealed himself as God. Externally, 
however, in his whole appearance, he was only a man. Only 
his superhuman wisdom, perfection and omnipotence caused 
his divinity to shine through the human element in his 
person. Upon the human characteristics of Jesus the 
divine traits stamped themselves only in fine, transparent, 
spiritually transfigured lines of sublimity. Jesus could not, 
therefore, appear before mankind with the direct announce- 
ment: ‘‘I am indeed in my outward appearance a man, 
like all you men; but in reality I am the eternal Son of God, 
begotten of the Father, the Creator and final aim of the 
universe, and I demand accordingly at once adoration and 
divine honour.’’ Whoever thoroughly understands the situa- 
tion in which Jesus, as man, found himself in relation to 
mankind will immediately feel that such language would have 
been unsuitable and not conformable to the eternal wisdom of 
God. Only as he actually did announce his divinity could he 
have done so—little by little, with an increasing unfolding of 
the truth, more practical than formal, rather through deeds 
than through words. 

Still another equally mportant reason determined such a 
revelation of his divinity—the spiritual disposition in which 
he found his Jewish contemporaries and, in particular, also 
his own disciples. We have learned what this was sufficiently 
in connection with the Messianic problem. Apart from some 
elect souls, the people surrounding Jesus were so impervious 

397 


308 Christ and the Critics 


to spiritual things, so full of earthly, sensuous, nationalistic, 
narrow-minded conceptions, that the Saviour could announce 
to them his Messiahship only little by little and in continual 
conflict with firmly rooted prejudices, and so indeed it was 
for the most part made known. What would have happened 
if it had been a question of the announcement of his equality 
with God and his own divinity? Then the difficulties to be 
overcome would have been twice as numerous before he could 
have reckoned on the slightest comprehension of it. It was 
necessary, first, to call the attention of his hearers slowly and 
gently to their prejudices, and to furnish them with proofs of 
his Messiahship through signs and wonders. At the same 
time, the Messianic notion of the disciples had to be reformed 
and brought up from the low level of nationalistic Jewish 
views. Together with this came the proof that the Messiah, 
precisely as the Messiah, must be God, and really a divine 
Messiah. And with this Messianic revelation of his divinity, 
Jesus then caused another to appear, according to which he 
proved himself to be the true Son of God in a metaphysical 
sense, independently of his Messianic vocation and destiny. 
We have proved this testimony of Jesus to himself to be an 
historical fact, in spite of the modern criticism of Jesus, which 
audaciously asserts that the Saviour himself never and no- 
where declared himself to be the true Son of God, and that 
only succeeding generations of his believing adorers had made 
him God. We were able to follow even the separate phases 
of the progressive revelation of the divine sonship of Jesus, 
beginning with his first appearance in the temple to his con- 
demnation to death. Therewith our task is really accom- 
plished. If, nevertheless, in what follows the line is still 
further advanced, and it is pointed out how the faith in the 
divinity of Jesus made its appearance in the early Church from 
the death of the Saviour to the end of the New Testament 
epoch, it is done in order to proceed to the very last positions 
of the enemy. He seeks precisely to assign the proofs of the 
divinity of Jesus in the earliest times to as late a date as 
possible, in order to draw thence the conclusion that the belief 
in the Son of God cannot belong to the treasure of revealed 
truth given by Jesus himself, but was a subsequent addition 
and an embellishment made by believers. In opposition to this 
it will be shown that this faith was at once the common 
property of the original Church, and therefore must be 
ascribed to the revelation made by Christ himself. Faith in 
the divinity of Jesus, as it developed at once after the death 
of the Master, under their eyes and in consequence of the 
instructions of the risen Lord, and as it immediately passed 
over to the first Christian generations as their most precious 
inheritance, is only the reflection and echo of the divine self- 
consciousness which Jesus possessed during his earthly life. 





The Divinity of Christ after his Death 309 


The faith of the earliest circle of disciples shows us, more 
clearly than anything else, what Christ thought on this point, 
and what he taught his disciples. 

Fortunately the New Testament sources give sufficient, and 
in parts even abundant, information about the position taken 
in the first century towards the central truth of the Christian 
religion. Of the forty days after the resurrection, during 
which Jesus appeared repeatedly to the disciples and asso- 
ciated with them, the last chapters of the Gospels provide us 
with information. The Acts of the Apostles then tells us of 
the faith of the early Church in Christ, from Pentecost and 
the first instructions down into the fifties. Meanwhile the 
great Epistles of Paul appear, which pourtray very fully the 
christology of the teacher of the Gentiles and of the Christian 
Church during the fifties and sixties. Paul had not yet laid 
down his pen, when it was taken up by the synoptic Evan- 
gelists, who testify, as we have seen, just as clearly to their 
faith and that of their contemporaries, as they represent with 
historic fidelity Christ’s own divine consciousness. And soon 
after the synoptists, John appears upon the scene, and gives 
us, well on towards the end of the century, again as Apostle 
and Evangelist, an account of that “which was from the 
beginning and which he had seen with his own eyes of the 
Word of life,’’ and what he and his brethren in the faith with 
heart and mouth confessed concerning the true Son of God, 
Jesus Christ. 


I.—TuHE DIVINITY OF CHRIST AFTER THE RESURRECTION. 


The impending death of the Master had been at all times 
the stumbling-block of the inner circle of his disciples. Its 
occurrence depressed both the joy and the certainty of the 
faith of the Apostles. With the resurrection, however, ac- 
cording to the representation of all the Gospels, their faith 
re-entered their hearts triumphantly and for ever. 

One only hesitated—Thomas, the most incredulous and 
thoroughgoing critic of the Apostles. He had not been present 
at the first appearance of Jesus after the resurrection, and to 
all the reports of his associates he remained sceptical. 
“Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and 
put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand 
into his side, I will not believe ’’’ (John xx, 25). 

Eight days after, the disciples were again assembled, and 
Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, 
stood in their midst and said, ‘‘ Peace be to you.”’ Then said 
he to Thomas: “ Put in thy finger hither and see my hands; 
and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side. And be 
not faithless, but believing.’’ Thomas answered and said to 
him : ‘ My Lord and my God.’’ Jesus said to him: “ Because 
thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are 


310 Christ and tbe Critics 


they that have not seen and have believed” (John xx, 
26-20). 

Any doubt about the signification of this confession is 
impossible. For the first time in the Gospel Thomas gives 
to the Saviour the name ‘‘God’’ plainly; not merely “ Son 
of God,’’ but directly and emphatically “ Lord and God.”’ 
The appellation “ Lord’’ which is added to the name of God 
is not at all accidental or of inferior value. We shall soon 
produce! from rich material the proof that the appellation 
“Lord’’ in the language of the disciples is identical with 
** Adonai-Jehovah,’’ the proper name of God. Both expres- 
stons together represent for the Israelite the full and complete 
name of God—“ Lord God, Jehovah Elohim, Kiupuos 6 Océs.” 
A more comprehensive and striking confession of the divinity 
of Jesus is not conceivable than this—‘‘ My Lord and my 
God.’’ And Jesus makes. this confession of Thomas his own, 
by expressly confirming it and by pronouncing those blessed 
who believe in his divinity without wishing to see with their 
eyes the evidence of what is believed. 

However indubitable the meaning of Thomas’s confession 
is, equally certain also is its authenticity. Apart from all other 
reasons, it finds its absolute confirmation in the Christian 
faith of the whole Christian community associated with the 
resurrection, of which we shall soon speak. On this account 
it is for the most part regarded as historical, even by those 
liberal investigators who are at variance with John’s Gospel. 
Thus, for example, Johannes Weiss remarks: ‘‘ The words 
of Thomas to the risen one in John xx, 28—‘ My Lord and 
my God ’—are undoubtedly authentic.’ 

So much the more difficult, therefore, is it to observe in 
silence how these same liberal critics either pass lightly over 
the scene with Thomas, or, with a deep, sentimental groan, 
try to get around the essential point of the confession of the 
divinity therein contained. Thus, for example, Edmund 
Stapfer, the Dean of the Protestant faculty at Paris, makes, 
quite in the style of Renan, the following declaration: “In 
the presence of such a being, a being who has had such moral 
grandeur and such sympathy, who has possessed such abso- 
lute conviction, who has made such unheard-of demands, has 
shown such thorough devotion, and has enjoyed such a deep, 
intense and evidently certain life in and through God, the 
exclamation of Thomas is not too strong and escapes also 
from our hearts and lips. In the presence of Jesus we also 
break out into this cry of obedience and adoration, ‘My Lord 
and my God!’’’? Involuntarily one asks oneself how scholars 


1 In the chapters on ‘* The Divinity of Christ in the Early Church ” 
and ‘* The Divinity of Christ and Paul.” 

2 Christus. Die Anfange des Dogmas, 29 (Tiibingen, 1900). 

3 Jésus-Christ pendant son mintstére, 351 (Paris, 1897). 





The Divinity of Christ after His Death 311 


with the reputation of Stapfer can seriously make acknow- 
ledgements of this sort and yet, with apparently perfect sin- 
cerity, deny the divinity of Jesus! This riddle finds a solution 
only in the words of Stapfer, in which he praises highly the 
individualistic christology of modern liberal Protestantism, 
and remarks: ‘In Protestantism every believer makes his 
christology to suit himself, because every believer conceives 
of the divinity of Jesus Christ in his own way, which is not the 
way of his neighbour.’”? 

The Thomas episode mirrors instantaneously the faith of 
the community of disciples from the morning of the resurrec- 
tion to the day of the ascension, on which Jesus departed from 
this earth and returned to the Father. There is no doubt that 
the faith of the disciples equalled that of Thomas. For we 
cannot suppose that the “unbelieving ’’ Apostle had more 
faith than the disciples who believed. Moreover, and this is 
the main thing, the disciples, as we shall soon see, already 
after the day of Pentecost, appear with faith in Jesus as the 
Messiah and ‘‘ the Lord, Adonai, Jehovah,” and exact the 
same confession from all the new believers. They saw already, 
in advance, therefore, in Jesus the Messiah and Lord, the 
divine Messiah, and this faith must have developed powerfully 
between Easter and Pentecost. 

Whence came this change in the opinions of the disciples, 
which up to that time had been partly unbelieving, partly 
weak in faith? Without doubt, the resurrection itself had 
brought about this mighty strengthening of their faith. The 
resurrection is always appealed to by the disciples as the 
principal proof and justification of their faith in the Lord and 
Messiah.*? Jesus had, indeed, continually put forward his 
resurrection as a guarantee for his personal revelation and his 
claim to their faith. But even without this, the disciples 
would never have been able to attain to the conviction that a 
man who had remained dead in the grave was the Messiah 
and Lord of the world. Therefore with the death of Jesus 
every ground of support and every hope had vanished from the 
disciples’ hearts (Luke xxiv, 21), and only came back again 
with the morning of the resurrection. He who claimed to be 
Messiah and Lord must show in himself his power over death 
and the world. The resurrection first became the sure pledge 
that God’s kingdom would triumph, and that the Lord would 
bring the schemes of men to the fulfilment of his counsels 
(Acts iv, 26). Proceeding from these considerations, the 
disciples saw in the resurrection not merely a miracle, or even 
the greatest of miracles, from which they concluded the truth 


1 La mort et la résurrection de Jésus-Christ, 340, 2nd. ed. (Paris, 
1898). 

Ao AGS ade) 32)5 114i PS) 103) X, 40 3) X111; 303 XV, 31s 2) Corr xy, 
T1227. Cb.4,, 3) efe, 


312 Christ and the Critics 


of Christ’s Messianic and divine revelation of himself; they 
rather regarded the resurrection as his immediate installation 
into the position of the Messiah and Lord. They express this 
view even in the drastic words directed to the Jews—through 
the resurrection ‘‘ God hath made both Lord and Christ this 
same Jesus, whom you have crucified ” (Acts ii, 36). By this 
“it is not said that he during his earthly life had not yet been 
the Christ and Lord, but only that God had now raised him 
to a position and had glorified him in a living form in which 
he could prove to his Church that he is the Lord and Christ, 
which he had already been before.’’? 

In this sense Harnack is right when he says: ‘‘ Among the 
surest facts of history is this, that it was not the Apostle Paul 
who first brought into such prominence the importance of the 
death and resurrection of Christ, but that he, in making this 
recognition, stood in entire harmony with the early Church. 

. . They were regarded already by the intimate circle of 
the disciples and by the original Church as fundamental. We 
can rightly affirm that the permanent recognition of Jesus 
Christ received its chief support here. On the ground of those 
two dogmas the whole system of christology has grown up.’ 

It is, however, incorrect to interpret this fact as if “the 
religion of Christ in the narrower sense’’ begins only with 
the resurrection and only in consequence of the belief in the 
resurrection.* It is not only the resurrection which first 
established the faith in Jesus as the Christ and Lord, but the 
resurrection in connection with the definite confession which 
Jesus made during his life—that he was the Christ and Lord. 
If Jesus had not given to the disciples this revelation before 
his death, and made upon them the impression that he was the 
Christ and Lord, even the resurrection could not possibly have 
brought that belief in his Messiahship and lordship into exis- 
tence. That is so self-evident that even Johannes Weiss cannot 
but confess: ‘The appearances of the Lord, however im- 
portant they may have been, would not alone have been suffi- 
cient to call forth a faith for which these men went to their 
death. . . . They must have been convinced that with their 
proclamation of this fact they were acting in harmony with 
Jesus. . . . The faith of the first disciples has its roots not 
only in their Easter experiences; it goes back behind Golgotha 
to the impression made by his personality. . . . The oldest 
faith in Christ extends back finally to the life of Jesus.’’4 

Thus the faith in Christ and the christological confession 


1 Th. Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, 294 {., 3rd ed. 
(Leipzig, 1908). 

2 Harnack, Wesen des Christentums, 97. 

3 Thus Weinel in his Paulus: Der Mensch und sein Werk, 108 f. 
(Tiibingen, 1904), and thus Harnack evidently wishes to be understood. 

4 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 10-12 (Tubingen, 1909); Paulus und Jesus, 
g (Berlin, 1900). 





Tbe Divinity of Christ after his Death 313 


of the Church of the resurrection are grounded in the life, 
teachings and consciousness of Jesus himself. Not merely 
the positive believers, to whom the resurrection was a fact, 
but also “to crown all, even those who adopt the modern 
view,” and thereby deny the resurrection, must, as Johannes 
Weiss acknowledges,! accept this explanation of the faith of 
the disciples concerning Christ. There is absolutely no other 
explanation. A consequence presupposes an antecedent. The 
faith of the Church after the resurrection points to a corre- 
sponding revelation of Jesus before his death. Of so little use 
is it for liberal criticism to strike out from the Gospel the 
resurrection and the consciousness of Jesus that he was 
Messiah and God. 

With these words we have in substance pointed out and 
explained the views concerning Christ, as they are found in 
the Church of the disciples after the resurrection. But refer- 
ence must still be made in particular to the form in which, 
then and subsequently, the faith in the divinity of Jesus was 
for the most part expressed. Thomas adored Jesus with the 
words, “ My Lord and my God,’’ which was equivalent to 
Lord God, Jehovah Elohim. The other disciples also must 
have often done so. Most frequently, however, they use, as 
appears from the closing chapters of the Gospels and the 
opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the address 
and invocation, ‘“‘ Christ and Lord.’’ It has been said already, 
and it will be thoroughly demonstrated in the next two 
chapters, that both forms of confession mean the same thing 
respectively, that the religious title ‘‘ Lord,’’ given to the 
Saviour, signifies neither more nor less than Adonai-Jehovah 
—the proper name of God. This stands usually in the Old 
Testament before the essential name of God (Lord God, 
Jehovah Elohim), but it indicated also, in itself alone, the 
true and only Godhead with special reference to its divine 
dominion, dignity and exaltation over the world.? 

Why did the disciples and the early Christians prefer this 
expression for the divinity of Jesus, while they called the 
Father simply God? The most obvious answer is to be sought 
in the consciousness of the Apostles that this title best repre- 
sents what is distinctive. Since of the full double name of 
God ‘‘ Lord God” (Jehovah Elohim, Kipios 6 Ocds), the 
first word is applied to the Son and the second to the Father, 
the godhead is designated as the union of both, absolutely 
and unequivocally, entirely in the sense of the monotheistic 
formula of the Old Testament, ‘‘ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our 
God is one Lord.” But not only that. 

In the name “ Jehovah, Lord,’’ the vocation and activity of 


1 Paulus und Jesus, 9. 
2 See subsequently in the chapter, ‘‘ Divinity of Christ in the Early 
Church.” 


BId hye Christ and the Critics / 


Jesus, as the divine Messiah, found their most perfect ex- 
pression. In accordance with our previous statements, we see 
that all the threads of the Messianic expectations in the Old 
Testament unite in the thought that the Messiah, as spiritual - 
Founder and Prince of the kingdom of God, reigns over the 
whole world and is its Lord. Spiritual dominion over the 
world, divine power in the world, redemption of the world 
and judgement of the world—these are the great achievements 
and sovereign titles of the Messiah-King. That was already 
the infallible guarantee for the fact that the Messiah 1s identical 
with Jehovah, whose inalienable rights reached their culmina- 
tion precisely in that absolute supremacy. Having attained 
that height, the Messianic prophecy then announces also: 
‘The Lord Jehovah himself will come and save us” (Isa. 
XXXV, 4). 

Now the disciples had certainly conceived this just as little 
as had the Jews contemporary with Jesus. It was almost 
impossible for their long secularized conception of the Messiah 
to rise to the Messianic ideal of the Old Testament. Even 
though they gave to the Master the name of Lord, they under- 
stood it, nevertheless, at first only as an expression of rever- 
ence and high regard, and as a substitute for the appellation 
“Master ’’ (compare Matt. vill, 25 with Mark iv, 38; Matt. 
x, 24 and John xiil, 13 with Matt. ix, 11 and xvii, 23). 

Jesus himself, however, taught them ever more plainly to 
call him Lord in an entirely different sense. He lets himself 
be addressed as “‘ Lord, Lord,’’ as Judge of the world (Matt. 
vii, 21; xxv, 37). And as there is only one Father, so he says 
that he also is the one and only Lord and Master (Matt. 
xxiii, 8). Then he performs, as an overwhelmingly convinc- 
ing and withal a practical form of instruction, the masterful 
acts of God in a long and ever-increasing series—healing the 
sick, driving out devils, raising from the dead and forgiving 
sins. In close connection with this, he reveals in words his 
divine consciousness of being the Lord, which, immediately 
before his death, he clothes in the prophecy : “‘ You shall see 
the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God 
and coming in the clouds of heaven . . . with great power 
and glory.’’ 

There can be no doubt that, with the wakening and growing 
faith of the disciples in the Messiahship of Jesus, their faith 
in his supremacy also awoke and grew. The resurrection 
gave to them palpable proof of the truth that Jesus was the 
“Christ and Lord.’’ It was not they who had invented these 
sovereign titles and applied them to Jesus, but it was Jesus 
who had educated them to do so. Just as the faith of the 
Church of the resurrection in Jesus’s essential divinity goes 
back to the impression of his personality and to his revelation 
before his death, so also this special form, in which the faith — 





The Divinity of Christ after his Deatb 315 


of the disciples makes its appearance, the faith in the Lord, 
goes back to the vitalizing instruction of the Saviour. 

Also, after the resurrection, the christological teachings of 
Jesus are plainly designed to impress upon the disciples his 
essential divinity, and preferably in the form of his divine 
sovereignty. The consciousness of being God and Lord per- 
vades the message addressed to Mary Magdalen at the first 
appearance of Jesus after the resurrection: “I ascend to my 
Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God”’ 
(John xx, 17). He who in a wholly personal way and in 
contrast to other men knows himself to be the Son of God, 
and is conscious that he can by his own power and in his own 
glory ascend to God the Father, must himself be God and 
Lord. 

It is in a feeling of being God and Lord that he, on the day 
of the resurrection, shows to the two disciples on the way to 
Emmaus, step by step, how the whole announcement of the 
Old Testament concerning the divine Messiah refers to him- 
self, and adds: “ Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things, and so to enter into his glory ?” (Luke xxiv, 26). 

His divinity and sovereignty also are revealed by him on 
Easter evening, when he ascribes to himself the unrestricted 
power to forgive sins—the highest divine and sovereign power 
—and transmits this, as a sovereign, to the Apostles with the 
words: “ Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall 
forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall 
retain, they are retained ’’ (John xx, 22, 23). 

Eight days later he testifies that he has found among the 
eleven Apostles faith in his person as God and Lord, and he 
demands the same of the twelfth, Thomas: “ Be not faithless, 
but  beleving... .2. UMy Lord: and\or God... Because 
thou last seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are 
they that have not seen and have believed ’’ (John xx, 27-209). 

Soon after, he elicits from Simon Peter by the Sea of 
Tiberias the acknowledgement of his divinity and sovereignty, 
and causes him to make good again his former threefold denial 
by a threefold confession of love for his Lord, and to crown 
this with the confession of the divine omniscience of Jesus: 
‘* Lord, thou knowest all things,” even the hidden depths of 
my heart (John xxi, 15-17). 

Jesus acts as Lord and God when he, by his own personal 
power, promises to send the Spirit of his Father: “I send the 
promise of my Father upon you’”’ (Luke xxiv, 49); and he 
transmits to the disciples his own divine power of working 
miracles in his name: “‘ In my name they shall cast out devils; 
they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up ser- 
pents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not 
hurt them; they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they 
shall recover’’ (Mark xvi, 17, 18). 







316 Christ and the Critics 


Finally, in the hour of his ascension there stream forth from 
his divine consciousness those sublime words: “ All power is 
given to me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach 
ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I 
am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” 
(Matt. xxviii, 18-20). 

Jesus is the possessor and administrator of all power, 
supremacy and glory in heaven and on earth. That is, in fact, 
the most popular, and at the same time, scientifically, the most 


complete transcription of the idea of ‘‘ Lord God,” ‘‘ Jehovah | ; 
Elohim ”’; the transcription that conveys the meaning which _ 


was familiar and perfectly comprehensible, especially to every 
Israelite, and to everyone acquainted with the Old Testament. 
Even Adolf Julicher remarks in regard to this: ‘* When, in 
Matt. xxviil, 18, the risen Jesus takes leave of his disciples 
with the words, ‘ All power is given to me in heaven and 
in earth,’ after he has already (Matt. iii, 17) been announced 
as God’s well-beloved Son, and meanwhile, between his 
baptism and his last address to his disciples, has (Matt. xi, 
27) imparted to them that his Father had given over every- 
thing to him—what else is that but the confession of Paul 
to the almighty Son of God?”? 

And since Jesus closes his earthly existence and finishes his 
revelation ‘‘ in the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
the Holy Ghost,” he puts himself on a level with God the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. He unites himself with the 
Father and the Holy Ghost in the one mysterious Trinity, 
whose separate Persons possess the same divine sublimity, 
efficacy and nature, and for that very reason exist in the 
same divine unity: “In the name (not in the names) of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’’ And if he, 
at the moment of his return to the Father and to the Holy 
Ghost, promises nevertheless to remain by and with his 
followers on this earth for ever, he proves thereby precisely 
that he is raised above time and space, eternal and omni- 
present, and that he has, in his divinity, existed before all 


time in the bosom of the Holy Trinity, to which he now ~ P 


returns in his divinity and humanity. 

Thus Jesus, as he takes leave of the world, and at the 
moment of his ascension and return to heaven, eliminates 
every merely human and creature-like conception of his 
person, his Messiahship, his sovereignty and his divine son- 
ship.? 

1 jJiilicher, Paulus und Jesus, 30. 

2 In regard to the genuineness of the trinitarian text, Matt. xxix, 19, 
cf. (apart from the ‘‘ Introductions to the Gospel of Matthew’’) Lepin, 
Jésus, Messie et Fils de Dieu, 334 ff. (Paris, 1906). . 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 317 


II.—TuHeE DIvINITY oF CHRIST IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 


1. Its Representation in the Acts of the Apostles. 


Fortunately we know exactly how the original messengers 
of the Gospel executed their commission as teachers in regard 
to the person of Jesus, and how the early Church conceived 
its faith in Christ. The physician and Evangelist Luke relates 
it to us in his Acts of the Apostles. In that book the oldest 
historian of the young Church draws the portrait of Christ 
according to the discourses and deeds of the Apostles, begin- 
ning with the festival of Pentecost up to nearly the end of the 
first Christian generation. The Acts of the Apostles closes 
with the first Roman imprisonment of St Paul, which began 
very probably in a.p. 58-59, or, at the latest, 60.1 Only the 
second part? of the book of Luke, however, falls in the fifties. 
The first and by far the greater part embraces only the first 
twenty years after the Saviour’s death. We rely for what 
follows principally on this oldest portion of the Acts of the 
Apostles, since the period of the fifties is pourtrayed expressly 
through the Epistles of Paul. Indeed, we lay the greatest 
weight on the first nine chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, 
which begin immediately with Pentecost, describe events 
entirely within the year of Jesus’ death and the year im- 
mediately succeeding it,? and contain especially the original 
teachings of Peter, Stephen and Philip. 

It is, then, a matter of the greatest interest to see that these 
old disciples proceed exactly as the Master himself had 
formerly done. To their Jewish hearers, to whom their words 
were at first uttered, they declare with all possible intensity 
that Jesus is the Christ promised in the Old Testament : 
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly 
that God hath made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus, 
whom you have crucified ’’ (Acts 11, 36). That is the funda- 
mental tone of all the teachings of the earliest days (Acts 
Repel orev, 42)511X; 120, 22's evil (33 X Vill, 15; (38). 

To prove the true Messiahship of Jesus, these preachers 
of the Gospel make appeal to the miracles which the Man 
of Nazareth performed, and which were known to many of 


1K. Kellner, Wann waren Petrus und Pauius in Rom? in Katholik, 
11-38 (1887); P. Schanz, Das Jahr der Gefangennahme des hl. Apostels 
Paulus, in Histor. Jahrbuch, 199-222 (1887); Adolf Harnack, Chrono- 
logie der altchristl, Literatur, 1, 233-239 (Leipzig, 1897); Belser, Zur 
Chronologie des Paulus, in Theol. Quaritschrift, 353-379, (1898); Fr. X. 
Polzl, Der Weltapostel Paulus, 431-452 (Regensburg, 1905). 

2 The first part ends in chap. xv, 35; then follows a transition to the 
second part, which begins chap. xvi, 6. 

3 Harnack, Die Chronologte der altchristl. Literatur, 1, 237, puts the 
conversion and earliest activity of Paul, recorded in Acts ix, still in 
the year 30. Some other investigators suppose a somewhat greater 
interval between the death of Jesus and the conversion of Paul. 


318 ; Cbrist and the Critics 


their hearers from having seen and heard of them. “ Jesus 4 
of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles _ 
and wonders and signs, which God did by him, in the midst 


of you, as you also know” (Acts ii, 22, pentecostal speech of 


Peter). In particular they emphasize, as a most important 
feature, the fact that the Messiah Jesus had passed through 
suffering, death and resurrection into his Messianic glory 
(Acts 11,°36; iv; 275 x, “395 xill, 23-37). “It 1s constanem 
declared by them that Jesus has become Lord and Christ, 
or has been made so by God. Not as though during his life 
he had not been Lord and Christ, but that he has now been 
raised to a position, and has attained to a state of glory, in 
which he finally and in the clearest way proves to the world 
that he is Lord and Christ, and demonstrates it to his Church. 
Starting from that point, however, these earliest preachers 
announced also the divine sonship of Jesus. Already in his 
Pentecostal teaching and the following speech of defence 
before. the tribunal Peter says: ‘‘ The God of Abraham and 
the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, 
hath glorified his Son Jesus, whom you indeed delivered up 
and denied before the face of Pilate. ... To you first, 
God, raising up his Son, hath sent him. ... For a truth 
there assembled Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles 
and the people of Israel against the holy child Jesus, whom 
thou hast anointed. . . . Signs and wonders to be done by 
the name of thy holy Son, Jesus.”! Philip demands faith in 
‘* the Son of God, Jesus,” as the first condition for baptism 
(Acts viii, 37; it is true, the text of this passage is not wholly 
certain). Faith in Jesus, the Son of God, forms an essential 


1 Acts ili, 13, 26; iv, 27, 30. The Greek text of Luke does not, it is 
true, translate the Aramaic words of Peter in these four passages with 
vids (Son), but with wais, which, indeed, means first ‘‘ child ’”’ or ‘‘ son,”’ 
but can also mean ‘“‘ servant,’’? ‘‘ menial.’? Yet it is certain that in 
Biblical or Septuagint Greek, wats is preferably used instead of vlés, 
when the reference is to the Messiah; a for example, in the Book of 
Wisdom ii, 13, compared with ii, 16 and 18. But also in the non- 
biblical literature of the first century after Christ, Jesus is sometimes 
called 6 wats ro} Geof, when the ‘‘ Son of God” is undoubtedly meant. 
So in the teaching of the Apostles, ix, 2, 3 and x, 2, and the Epistle of 
Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, lix, 2-4. But Luke, the author of 
the Acts, of all the New Testament writers, ‘‘ stands nearest in his style 
to the Septuagint Bible; he lived in the Greek Bible’ (Harnack, Lukas 
der Arzt, 120 note 2), and the teaching of the Apostles, as well as the 
Epistle of Clement, came into existence almost at the same time as the 
Acts. Where, therefore, in the Acts the Christ Jesus is called 6 mats rod 
@cod, this should certainly be translated ‘‘ Son of God.’’ So much the 
more as in two of these four passages divine things @ » spoken of the 
Saviour. In Acts iv, 30, Peter says that ‘‘ Signs and wonders are done 
by the name of the holy Son (madés) of God, Jesus.” Similarly, in Acts 
iii, 16, after Jesus had immediately before (Acts iii, 15) been called 
“the author of life.’”” The Peshitto has on this account translated the 
wats, referring to Jesus, in all the four passages in the Acts by the 
word ‘‘ Son.” 





The Divinity of Christ after his Death 319 


element of the Gospel, as it was announced by the newly 
converted Apostle to the Gentiles. Immediately after his 
conversion, he ‘‘ preached Jesus in the synagogues, that he is 
the Son of God ’”’ (Acts ix, 20, 6 vids tot Oeov). He declares 
that it is written also of Jesus in Psalm 11: “Thou art my 
Son; this day have I begotten thee’ (Acts xiii, 33). 

Jesus the Messiah and the Son of God—these are, there- 
fore, beyond a doubt cardinal points of the christology of the 
original Church. Just as certainly also can it be proved that 
the expressions ‘‘ Messiah and Son of God’’ were not applied 
to Jesus in accordance with human standards, but in the sense 
of a divine Messiah, a Son of God by nature, and a God-Man, 
Jesus. 

It is true, in the discourses of the Acts, the human element 
in Jesus is also strongly emphasized. The speeches of the 
early preachers of the Gospel represent him as a man to whom 
God has borne witness by signs and wonders, and whom he 
has anointed and consecrated with the Holy Ghost and divine 
power for his works (Acts ii, 22; x, 38). Of this same man 
it is, however, also asserted that he is ‘‘ the author of life’’ 
(Acts iii, 15), and one who has in himself natural and super- 
natural life and imparts it to others; that in him ‘‘ alone is 
salvation’’ and “that there is no other name under heaven 
given to men, whereby we must be saved (Acts iv, 12); 
that ‘‘ all receive through his name remission of sins who 
believe in him” (Acts x, 43); and that ‘‘ he is the Judge of 
the living and of the dead” (Acts x, 42). With such expres- 
sions one cannot speak of a mere man, however favoured and 
gilted. Such language is suited only to divinity. 

Together with the Messiahship and divine sonship of Jesus, 
emphasis is also continually laid in the Acts of the Apostles, 
and already, in fact, in Peter’s pentecostal speech, on his 
sovereignty. Jesus receives from all the original preachers 
of the Gospel and from the entire early Church throughout 
Lnevname oyeios, (Lord h', the Lord," the: Lord: Jesus 
Christ,’’ “our Lord,’’ “our Lord Jesus Christ’’—we meet 
these appellations on almost every page. Kyrios is the proper 
name of Jesus Christ. Anyone can convince himself of this 
who turns over the pages of the Acts, to say nothing of those 
writings of the New Testament in which the conditions of the 
second generation are more specially pourtrayed. 

What means, then, in the Acts of the Apostles the title 
Kyrios, “‘ the Lord,” given to Christ? We have already 
elsewhere anticipated the meaning of this, and promised to 
produce at this place the proof of our interpretation of the 
Dame Lords 

In itself the word ‘‘ Lord”’ is a form of address which does 
not signify anything superhuman or even extraordinary. 
Precisely as in our language, so in that of the Semite (Matt. 


320 Christ and. tbe Critics 


Xill, 273) XxI, 30; John iv, 115 xx, 15), and of the Greekjoas 
can be used as a form of politeness towards an equal or as 
a sign of veneration and submission towards superiors. There 
is no doubt that Jesus in his earthly life was addressed in this 
sense, as Lord, by people who saw in him merely an ordinary | 
man and teacher. 

But the designation of Jesus as “ Lord’’ by the first Chris- 
tians had nothing to do with this simple form of address. It 
appears among them at once and continuously as a proper 
name of an exclusively religious import. What they wished 
to express by it must be shown by the linguistic usages of the 
time in the Grecian, Jewish and Christian forms of speech. 

The Greek contemporaries of earliest Christianity bestowed 
the name Kyrios upon their gods, and, indeed, united with it 
the idea of special divine might and sovereign power. Accord- 
ingly, the God-fearing, pious man who had chosen some 
divinity as his particular defender and patron called him his 
Kyrios, Lord.2 In so far as the Roman emperors allowed 
themselves to be made equal to the gods, they also claimed 
the title Kyrios Dominus, Augustus and Tiberius, it is true, 
declined the divine appellation. But their successors had 
themselves frequently enough entitled Domini, and, indeed, 
always in connection with the divine honours bestowed upon 
the living emperors.® 

Since, therefore, the Christians designated and honoured 
Jesus as 0 Kupios, they placed him in opposition to the gods 
and lords of paganism, not only as the one and only God and 
Lord, but they placed Christ also especially “‘as the true, 
divine Lord in contrast to the ‘God and Lord’ on the imperial 
Roman throne.’’* Therefore, the investment of Christ with 
the title Kyrios denotes, in the light of the secular history of 
the time, a recognition of the divinity of Jesus. 

We are not, however, restricted to this proof alone. The 
first Christians, indeed, justified their expression Kyrios by 
the usage of the Greek language; yet this expression had its 
origin in Old Testament and Jewish notions, and derived 
its very definite meaning from that source. The divine proper 
name Jehovah signified to the Jews living after the exile a 
word which one should not utter and cannot utter on account 


i In Epictetus the physician is addressed as Lord (Diss. ii, 15, 5; 
iii, 10, 15) by his patient; the soothsayer by him who questions him 
(11, 7, 9); and the rhetorician by his admirer (iii, 23, 19). In letters the 
father often receives from his son the title ‘‘ Lord,” as a relative does 
from his kinsmen, and a superior from his inferiors. See the vouchers 
for this in Adolf Deissmann’s Licht vom Osten, The N. 7. and the 
newly discovered Texts of the Greco-Roman World, 122, 125, 133, 152, 
155 (Ttibingen, 1909). 

2 Proofs in Deissmann’s Licht vom Osten, 122 f., 128 f., 264 ff. 

3 See Gustav Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 271; Deissmann, of. cit., 114 ff, 
265, 274. 

¢ Gustav Dalman, of. ctt., 271 £; Deissmann, of. ctt., 233 ff. 





Che Divinity of Christ after this Death 321 


of its infinite majesty and sanctity. Accordingly, wherever 
the “unutterable name’’ Jehovah appears in the Bible text 
it is provided with the vowels of the word Adonai and spoken 
also as Adonai, ‘“ Lord.’’ Adonai, Lord, has, therefore, the 
same signification as Jehovah, God.+ 

In the Septuagint, the Greco-Jewish translation of the Old 
Testament, both names, Jehovah and Adonai are rendered 
correctly and logically as Kyrios, ‘‘ Lord.” And, wherever in 
the original text Jahwe ha Elohim stands, the Septuagint 
translates it, according to genuine Jewish and Old Testament 
usage, by Kipios 6 Geds—that is, the Lord God. Kyrios is, 
therefore, the real proper name of the true God; and no 
Palestinian or Greek Jew ever understood by the religious 
designation “ Lord, our Lord,’’ anything other than the one 
true God. 

The Acts of the Apostles leaves no room for doubt that the 
oldest Church adapted itself to this linguistic usage, by calling 
Christ Kyrios, or Lord. In the 110 passages in which we 
meet with Kyrios in the Acts, the designation in perhaps a 
third of them refers directly to God, in another third directly 
to Jesus Christ, and in the remaining third to God or to Jesus 
Christ. The expression is evidently used indiscriminately of 
God and of Jesus. For example, we find in Acts x1, 20 and 21 
the surname Kyrios three times. The first time the reference 
is to Jesus, the second and third times to God and Jesus 
jointly. Very often it is impossible to decide whether the 
name “‘ Lord’’ refers directly to God or to Jesus, or to both. 
The discourse glides imperceptibly from one to the other 
(Acts li, 47; ix, 28, 31). This fact is a clear proof how the 
Lord Jesus, is closely identified with the Lord God. 

Moreover, in many places by means of further additions it 
is expressly indicated that the appellation Kyrios, ‘‘ Lord” 
belongs to the Saviour as his own thoroughly divine name. 
The Lord Jesus, through the mediation of Peter, heals the 
paralytic (Acts ix, 34). The Lord Jesus strikes down and 
converts Saul (Acts ix, 5-27). In the name of the Lord Jesus 
and through the power of the Lord Jesus the disciples work 
all their miracles (Acts iil, 6; Iv, 7-12; xvi, 18). In the name 
of the Lord Jesus they impart baptism for the forgiveness of 
sins (Acts ti, 38; x, 48; xix, 5). Faith in the Lord Jesus and 
the grace of the Lord Jesus bring salvation (Acts xv, 11; 
Xvi, 31). For the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the disciples 
sacrifice their lives (Acts xv, 26; xxi, 13). To the Lord Jesus 
Stephen gave up the ghost (Acts vii, 59), just as the dying 
Saviour gave up the ghost to his Father (Luke xxiii, 46). The 
Lord Jesus is the “author of life’’ (Acts ii, 15), and “ Lord 
of all’’ (Acts x, 36). 

1 See G. Hollmann, Welche Religion hatten die Juden als Jesus 


auftrat? 26 f. (Halle, 1905). 
I, 21 


322 Christ and the Critics 


This sovereignty and dominion are, therefore, directly 
divine attributes. They include precisely what in the Old 
and New Testaments is looked upon as the mark of true 
divinity: God is Jehovah, Adonai, Kvpios—that is, the 
highest and unlimited Lord and Master of heaven and earth. 
Since the early preachers of the Gospel, from the first feast of 
Pentecost on, already proclaim, as a cardinal point of the 
Gospel: ‘‘ Therefore let all the house of Israel know most 
certainly that God hath made both Lord and Christ this same 
Jesus, whom you have crucified’’ (Acts ii, 36), they put the 
Lord Jesus Christ on an equality with the Lord God. 

This is proven also from another very important point of 
view—namely, from the position which the “ Lord” Jesus 
Christ holds in the inner religious life of the first Christians. 
The Christians were recognized from the beginning as ‘‘ in- — 
vokers of the name of Jesus” and ‘‘ worshippers of the Lord 
Jesus.” Without infringing on the worship of the Father, 
which was, indeed, the same as the worship of the Son, the 
early Christians passed from the Old Testament worship of 
Jehovah to the worship of the ‘‘ Lord” Jesus. It is true, the 
Apostles in Jerusalem still took part in the religious services 
practised by Israel, and paid visits to the temple at the usual 
hours for prayer, in order to pray to the God of their fathers 
with their people and for their people (Acts ili, 1; xxii, 17).4 
But together with this common bond, which still united the 
Christians with the Jews, the former brought their special 
knowledge of God also in their worship to an unequivocal 
expression. This was done by the adoration and invocation 
of the Lord Jesus. He formed, from the very first, the central 
point in the specifically Christian religion and piety. 

To Saul first, at his conversion, comes the commandment 
of the disciple Ananias to call upon the name of the Lord 
Jesus as a fundamental condition of baptism and forgiveness 
of sins (Acts xxii, 16). Indeed, Saul had not yet been con- 
verted to the Lord, when the Christians in Damascus, as at 
Jerusalem, were already invoking the name of the Lord Jesus, 
and the whole number of believers, in reference to this worship 
of him, were simply termed the people who called upon the 
name of the Lord Jesus (Acts ix, 14, 21). And still earlier, 
the dying Stephen prays to the Lord Jesus for himself and 
his murderers—just as Jesus himself had, on the cross, prayed 
to his Father—‘‘ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” ‘‘ Lord Jesus, 
lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts vii, 59, 60). In fact, 
already at Pentecost Peter refers the words of the prophet 
Joel, ‘ Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall 
be saved,’’ to Jesus. For the discourse which the Prince of 
the Apostles connects with this prophetic text ends in the one 


1 See the account of Hegesippus concerning the indefatigable praying 
of James in the Temple, in Eusebius, H. £., ii, xxiii, 6 





The Divinity of Christ after his Death 323 


thought that Jesus Christ is the Lord, in whose name are 
forgiveness of sins, salvation and blessedness (Acts ii, 21-38). 
It is, however, doubtful whether Jesus or God is the Lord to 
whom the Apostles prayed before Pentecost, and said: ‘‘ Thou, 
Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of 
these two thou hast chosen’’ (Acts i, 24). 

As we see, the early Christians do not content themselves 
with an enthusiastic veneration and glorification of their 
Master. No, they transfer to him the genuine invocation of 
God and the adoration which 1s due to and 1s paid only to the 
Most High God. They pray to the Lord Jesus, and expect 
from him an answer to their prayers, grace and forgiveness 
of sins, just as from God himself. 

Of this central and thoroughly divine position of the Lord 
Jesus in the religious life and prayers of the oldest Christians, 
even the most pronounced enemies of the divinity of Jesus 
are convinced, and are surprised at it. Johannes Weiss, for 
example, expresses himself on this point as follows: “In 
order to explain what the use of the name ‘ Lord’ meant for 
the early Christians religiously, one would have to write out 
the whole New Testament. For the formula ‘ our Lord Jesus 
Christ’ contains the religion of the primitive Church in 
embryo. Obedient submission, reverence, a holy fear of 
wounding him, the feeling of absolute dependence upon him 


in all things, . . . gratitude, love, trust—in short, everything 
that man can feel in regard to divinity, all that is expressed 
in this name. ... This looking upon God and Christ as 


being on an equality, which exactly corresponds to the joint 
sovereignty of both, is characteristic of the piety of the 
original Church. As the Christians cry ‘ Abba, Father,’ and 
pray to him, so, undoubtedly, they have prayed to Christ in 
the most literal sense of the word, not only as an act of 
homage, but also in the form of a request. Of this invocation of 
the Lord we have several isolated instances; but such prayers 
were surely vastly more numerous. The Christians, therefore, 
actually stand in regard to Christ as they do to God. . 

The moment when the first Christian addressed his prayer to 
the ascended Christ is the natal hour of that religion, which 
till the present day appears to many Christians as the true and 
only authorized Christianity. Other modern Christians may 
for themselves repudiate prayer to Christ and declare it to be 
an error, but the historian must say that Christianity from its 
earliest beginnings has practised the worship of Christ, 
together with the faith in God the Father, as the to it perfectly 
natural form of religion.”+ Like Johannes Weiss, a number of 


1 Johannes Weiss, C&Aristus, 24 f. (Ttibingen, 1909). See also the 
admirable treatment of the subject by Theo. Zahn, Skrzzen aus dem 
Leben der alten Kirche, 271-308, 31rd ed, (Leipzig, 1908), under Prayer 
to Jesus in the Apostolic Age. 


324 Christ and the Critics 


the most important Protestant investigators of various ten- 
dencies also recognize that “the Lord Jesus Christ’’ in the 
days of the original Apostles and the early Church is in every 
respect made equivalent to God. This is the opinion of 
Gustav Dalman,! G. B. Stevens,? B. Weiss,? K. Miller, 
E. von Hartmann,°® and Theodor Zahn. ® 

Jesus Christ, therefore, from the day of the Church’s 
foundation, was venerated, invoked and prayed to in place of 
Jehovah; and the early Christians give significant and definite 
expression to this practical recognition of the divinity of 
Christ by transferring to Jesus the name Jehovah—Adonai, 
Kyrios, Lord. This is the christology of the Acts of the 
Apostles.” 


2. Historical Genuineness of this Representation. 


In order to weaken, or,. when possible, to eliminate, the 
immense impression of this fact, one naturally takes refuge 
again in the stereotyped expedient, that the Acts of the 
Apostles was written comparatively late, and that it is 
questionable how far Luke gives us in it the portrait of Christ 
of the earliest generation, and how far this had been already 
refashioned by the faith of the later decades. This charge, 
which, in regard to the New Testament writings in general, 
has been already refuted, is in particular absolutely without 
foundation in reference to the conception of Jesus in the Acts 
of the Apostles. 

No less a man than Adolf Harnack, the leader of the liberal 
Protestant school, has lately undertaken, in two masterfully 
designed and executed monographs, the defence of the Acts 
of the Apostles against the unheard-of accusation brought 
against it by representatives in other respects of his own 
views.® He describes the procedure of the latter with the 
words: “ The book is alleged to be a comparatively late and 
motley compilation, in which the editor contributed a small 
but certainly a bad part; the autobiographical portions are not 
the work of the author, but excerpts from some source, or else 
purely literary inventions ; historical mistakes are as numerous 
in it as are the rents and badly concealed reparations; the 
portrait of Paul is drawn with a bias, or from a lack of 
personal acquaintance, and the description in the first chapters 


1 Die Worte Jesu, 271 f. 

2 The Theology of the New Testament, 266 (London, 1901). 

38 Lehrbuch der biblischen T heologte des N. T., 133 (Berlin, 1903). 
Unser Herr, in Bibitsche Zett- und Streitfragen, 133 (1906). 

Das Christentum des N. 24.4175 (1905). OV aieue 7c ie 

7 See also Mangenot, Jésus, Messie et Fils de Dieu dans les Actes des 
A pétres (Paris, 1908). 

8 Adolf Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, der Verfasser des dritten Evan- 
geliums und der Apostelgeschichte (Leipzig, 1906); Die Afostel- 
geschichte, Untersuchungen (Leipzig, 1908); Neue Untersuchungen 
zur Apg. und zur Abfassung der synoptischen Evangelien (Leipzig, 


1gIo). 


a 





The Divinity of Christ after his Death 325 


is hardly more than an imaginary painting; Peter is repre- 
sented in the style of Paul, and Paul in the style of Peter—but 
who can count all the accusations which have been raised 
against this book? And if they were only tangible accusa- 
tions! But since a large part of them have been conclusively 
refuted, one has now almost more to do with a general mis- 
trust of the book, and with fanciful ideas and patronizing 
denials, than with definite objections; but mostly, however, 
with the fruits of the mischievous method of hanging heavy 
burdens on the slender thread of one single observation, and, 
in the case of a New Testament writer, of making no allow- 
ance for weakness or ignorance, but rather using these as 
explosive material to blow up the entire book.’’? 

It is, indeed, astonishing what violent attacks have been 
made, even down to the most recent times, on the Acts of the 
Apostles, solely because its contents, and more especially its 
christology, have been to liberal critics a thorn in the eye. 

In order to deal as they like with the contents of the Acts 
of the Apostles, Luke, the pupil of the Apostles, must under 
no condition be accepted as its author, although the unani- 
mous Christian tradition, which can be traced back to the 
middle of the second century, is in favour of Luke. In fact, 
although investigators like Credner, B. Weiss, Klostermann, 
Zahn, Renan, Hobart, Ramsay, Hawkins, Blass and many 
others (to say nothing at all of Catholics) have proved the 
correctness of this tradition, and although the liberals have 
not been able to bring one valid argument against it, almost 
all of them, from Kénigsmann, De Wette, Baur, and Zeller 
to Wendt, Schiirer, Pfleiderer, von Soden, Jiilicher and John 
Weiss, have agreed in denying the authorship of Luke. Only 
since Harnack has spoken, and has brought forth an over- 
whelming mass of proof against the liberal critics in his 
Luke the Physician, has the correctness of the tradition been 
acknowledged. 

Thereby also the date of the Acts of the Apostles has entered 
a new phase. It is true, the fantastic wishes and assertions 
of some critics, according to whom the “ Acts’’ was not 
written till the second century, had already given place to 
the universal recognition that the book was written much 
earlier. The liberals also are gradually, in considerable 
numbers, approaching the views of orthodox investigators. ? 

Nevertheless, Harnack had, until 1906, firmly held the view 


1 Die Apostelgeschichte, 19-20. 

2 As for the date of the Acts, F. Blass assumes it to be between 
64-70, Acta Apostolorum, sive Lucae ad Theophilum liber alter (1895) ; 
B. Weiss gives it as about the year 80, Lehrbuch der Einleittung in das 
Weds, . srd) ed, (1897); A: C. Headlam’ assumes’ for.it) the year )70; 
Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1, 30; Th. Zahn, about 75, Einlettung in 
das N. T., 11, 1899; Knabenbauer, as shortly after 62, Commentarius 
in Actus Apostolorum (1899); R. B. Rackham, as the year 64, The Acts 
of the Apostles (1901); Belser, as 63, Einlettung in das N. 7. (1901). 


326 Christ and the Critics 


that Luke wrote only between the years A.p. 78 and 93.? 
Now, however, the Berlin critic himself contradicts the argu- 
ments brought forward for the above date,” and adduces 
“very weighty observations ’’ which favour the view “ that 
the Acts of the Apostles [and therefore also the Gospel] were 
composed already at the beginning of the sixties.’’? The only 
reason which deters the rationalistic scholar from finally 
agreeing to this date lies in the miracles and prophecies 
narrated in the Acts; for it would be almost impossible to 
contest the historical authenticity of the records of those 
miracles, and to declare them to be myths and legends, if the 
Acts of the Apostles had appeared only from ten to thirty years 
after the events described.* 

If the Acts of the Apostles was already written at a time 
when many witnesses of the events narrated in that book were 
still alive, and could test the truth of the representation given, 
the further charge that the author has drawn from thoroughly 
unreliable or even imaginative sources falls at once to the 
ground. On the contrary, it can be proved with certainty 
that Luke for the first part of the Acts relied on admirable 
oral traditions and, indeed, on written sources also, while he 
wrote the whole second half (chapters xvi to xxviii) partly as 
an eye-witness, partly on the ground of the narratives of co- 
operating witnesses.° 

This material—a source of information both autobio- 
graphical and external, and written as well as oral—Luke 
worked up with historical fidelity. This is vouched for not 
only by his own assertion and the demonstrable conscientious- 
ness of the historian, but also by the whole content and form 
of his book. Luke makes throughout, not the impression of 
“a wild enthusiast in the form of a physician,’’ as the 
extreme liberal critics describe him; he is ‘‘ neither uncritical 
nor credulous. . . . Credulous and uncritical writers of that 
period brought out very different productions! Moreover, 
this historian stands, in regard to the greater part of his work, 
under a control than which one more severe can hardly be 
conceived—namely, that of the Epistles of Paul. That these 
writings are the productions of the moment, and originate 
from a man of the most marked subjectivity, increases even 
more the severity of the test. Yet only the over-scrupulous 
and cavillers can fail to recognize that the Acts of the Apostles © 


1 Harnack, Chronologie der altchristl. Literatur, i, 246-250, 718 (1897) ; 
Lukas der Arat, 18, 115. 2 Die Apostelgeschichte, 217 fi. 

CE Ne ERM over k oN £142.05" DDAieads (aaa 

5 Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte, 131-198; Lukas der Arzt, 65-1113 
Th. Zahn, id., Die von Lukas benttzten Quellen, 394-425; Belser, id., 
Die Quellen der Apostelgeschtchte, 191-213; W. Hadorn, Die A fostel- 
geschichte und thr geschichtlicher Wert, to ff, (1906), Das Evangelium 
in der Apostelgeschichte (1907); H. J. Andrews, The Acts of the Apostles 
(London, 1908). 





The Divinity of Christ after this Death 327 


has, in many dozens of important and unimportant passages, 
stood the test which the Epistles of Paul mean for it. What 
still remains, apart from a few trifles, is the description of the 
apostolic council and that of the self-defence of Paul in the 
last speeches, and in general his attitude towards the Jews 
in his last sojourn at Jerusalem.’’? 

But also these parts, which cannot be verified from the 
Pauline Epistles, are unassailable. In fact, precisely that 
which the critics have most contested in Luke “bears the 
stamp of historical reality,’’? and the critics doubt it only 
because “they treat their fanciful notions about the book 
more respectfully than they do the great lines of the work 
which they in part acquiesce in, as a matter of course, and 
in part immediately criticize, because they know better.’’? 

Harnack sums up his final judgement on the Acts of the 
Apostles, based on the most thorough analysis and painfully 
exact investigations, as follows: ‘‘ Viewed from almost every 
possible standpoint of historical criticism, it is a solid, estim- 
able and in many respects an extraordinary work,’’* “a 
critically historical production which calls for the highest 
recognition,’’* “a literary achievement of the first rank.’’® 

In one point only does Harnack decide against the author 
of the Acts—namely, in reference to the belief in miracles and 
the reports of them.® And just in this point Harnack departs 
from the orthodox Christian opinion of the Acts of the 
Apostles. He cannot share the “ prejudices’’ of orthodox 
investigators who take miracles seriously.’ But whoever 
studies the Apostelgeschichte of the Berlin critic with an open 
mind will find that the tables are turned, and that Harnack 
approaches his judgement of the work ‘of Luke with the 
prejudice that there are no miracles; that this prejudice brings 
a painful discord into his otherwise admirable work; that his 
explanations and arguments become both threadbare and 
astonishingly naive when he endeavours to keep clear of the 
miraculous; that he lets his judgement, as an historian, be 
obscured, and, in fact, finally be actually influenced by his 
philosophical view which is antagonistic to miracles; and yet 
that he cannot, after all, either deny Luke’s accounts of 
miracles, or prove them to be “legends growing with almost 
inconceivable rapidity,* or myths, or in any way explain them 
as natural events. Thus criticism will see itself compelled, 
not only, as Harnack says,® in all other points, but also in 
regard to the miracles in the Acts of the Apostles, to return 


1 Harnack, Apostelgeschichte, 17-18. a 4a TOs 

TP tee. 222. YY Ae Loy 

5 Lukas der Arzt, 101. 

6 i7d., 18. Nevertheless, he ‘‘ absolves Luke from religious mysteries, 
tricks of magic, pious absurdities, etc.” Catt ta oak. 

8 id., 224. ® 1dr, 225. 


328 Christ and the Critics 


to the traditional positions and to accept the work of Luke 
as in all respects a faithful reproduction of the history of the 
oldest Church. 

This certainly means that the Acts of the Apostles, especi- 
ally as regards christology, gives us historically positive 
information concerning those first days of the Church. After 
what has been said no more proof of this is needed. Jesus 
Christ—the Person and the Gospel of Jesus Christ—forms, 
after all, so emphatically the principal feature of the Acts of 
the Apostles that the work itself could not be historical if its 
christology were not historical. Moreover, the portrait of 
Jesus, as it is sketched by the different Apostles and disciples 
in the Acts, is, in spite of its general uniformity, so unique in 
its details that we cannot possibly suppose that Luke 
brought only his type of Christ—in case he may have had 
a type of his own—into his book and into the preaching of 
the first messengers of Christ. Even P. W. Schmiedel writes : 
“The portraiture of Jesus is more simple and agrees more 
perfectly with the most authentic passages in the first three 
Gospels than is elsewhere the case in the whole New Testa- 
ment. It is hardly credible that this christology does not 
originate from the oldest source.” Moreover, the christology 
of the book of Luke is so intimately interwoven with the un- 
disputed facts related in it, that one without the other is not 
to be thought of. 

Even the formerly frequently asserted theory that the 
speeches in the first part of the Acts, which contain the most 
significant christological utterances of Peter, James, Philip, 
Stephen and the newly converted Paul, may not be historical 
but were composed by Luke himself, now proves worthless. 
Of course they bear the imprint of the style of Luke, since 
they were originally spoken in the Aramaic language. But, 
with all the fineness and freedom of his linguistic portraiture, 
Luke has altered his sources of information so little essentially 
that we distinctly feel the Hebraic mode of thought and 
expression of the original. Moreover, the added statements 
in regard to places, dates and incidents which are added to 
the story are so peculiar and exact that it would have been 
impossible subsequently to invent them. Furthermore, the 
separate speeches have throughout an individual stamp; so 
individual indeed that we find in them the character and per- 
sonality of the different earliest preachers of the Gospel, Peter, 
James, Stephen, Paul and others.?2, Even Harnack, therefore, 
does not consider these speeches as inventions or plagiarisms 
from Paul’s writings, but as an “ original possession ’’? (of 
the Church), and he argues in favour of the existence of 


1 Encyclopedia Biblica (Cheyne and Black), article Acts of the 
A tostles, xiv, col. 48. 
2 See Harnack, A postelgeschichte, 101-110. Sid 1 OG .e 





The Divinity of Christ after this Death 329 


written sources from which Luke derived them.! In fact, 
even if we were willing to concede that they were composed 
freely only at a later date, their christological import would 
still prove itself as belonging to the very first era. They 
contain, as Johannes Weiss correctly asserts, ‘‘ such primitive 
Christian characteristics, as refer back to the standpoint of 
the oldest Church. . . . Whether they originate at a later 
epoch or not, they contain, precisely in their christology, very 
ancient ideas.’’? 

This must still be especially emphasized in regard to the 
christology of the ‘‘ Lord,” in which the divinity of Jesus is 
expressed most clearly in the Acts of the Apostles. Our 
opponents hold firmly to the assertion that Luke borrowed the 
titles Lord, our Lord, and Lord Jesus Christ from the 
Epistles of Paul, and smuggled them into the original history 
of the Church. Against this two things can be said in reply. 
First, the ‘“ Lord-christology ’’ is such an essential part of the 
Acts of the Apostles that the one must fall as an historic 
monument if the other does. Paul has not brought that 
christology into the Church, but has himself found it 
in the Church. We meet with its first expressions already 
before the ascension of the Lord—that is, at a time which 
antedates the facts related in the Acts as well as the Epistles 
of Paul. Paul himself furnishes us the proof that Christ, in 
the primitive epoch described in the Acts, and, indeed, already 
in the first Jewish-Christian Church, was called ‘“‘ Lord’’ and 
‘our Lord.” This is made certain by the Aramaic formula 
‘* Maranatha ”—that is, ‘‘ our Lord cometh,” or ‘* our Lord, 
come !’’? which “ must originate from the original Church.’’* 
Paul has, therefore, only reproduced ‘‘ the name of Kyrios,° 
which came down to him from the oldest Church.’’ Instead 
of calling Paul the inventor of the “ Lord-christology,’’ and 
Luke its Pauline heir and plagiarist, as most liberal critics 
do, both Paul and Luke must, on the contrary, have learned 
to designate Jesus Christ as the “Lord’’ from the early 
Church. 

Also the divine import which this name has in the Acts of 
the Apostles was not at all, as the liberals wish to make us 
believe,® taken from Pauline theology and by Luke construed 
into the confession of the ancient Church. Again, Paul’s 
Epistles themselves are a guarantee and a proof of the fact 
that really the original Church in the very first years of its 
existence saw and worshipped God in the “ Lord’’ Jesus 
Christ, as Luke reports. It is an undeniable fact, which we 

1 7d., 136-139, 184-186. 2 Johannes Weiss, Chrzstus (Ttibingen, 1909). 

er riGorxvis 22's Revy Xx1i,1 20. 


4 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 24. 5 9d.., 2b) 
6 Even Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, 101, remarks of the author of the 
Acts : ‘* He who acknowledged Christ as the Xyrios . . . was a follower 


Sf. Paul,’ 


330 Christ and the Critics 


shall soon demonstrate minutely, that about the fifties, when 
Paul wrote his great Epistles, all Christians—old Apostles 
and novices, Jewish and Hellenic Churches—everywhere 
adored and invoked the Lord Jesus Christ—in short, offered a 


him a truly divine worship.? 


Already, in the Epistle to the Romans, therefore, when 3 


Paul is writing to Christians whom he has not taught, but 
who had been previously converted and by other teachers 
(Peter), he speaks of the divinity of Jesus as of a doctrine 
which is universally known and conceded by all, and about 
which there is still no dispute among Christians (Rom. ix, 5). 

It is, however, clearly unthinkable that such a universal 
phenomenon, which was regarded as the nucleus of the 
Christian religion only twenty years after the death of Jesus, 
should have merely a short time before found its way into 
the Church. On the contrary, Paul, already when he from 
a persecutor became a confessor of Jesus, must have come 
to know the disciples at Damascus and the Apostles at 
Jerusalem as worshippers of the Lord Jesus. 

Nothing, therefore, is more unwarranted than the sup- 
position that faith in the divine nature of Jesus “was still 
quite unknown to the oldest community of disciples.’’? Even 
Alfred Loisy recognizes, on the contrary, that the christo- 
logical dogma “has been contained in the primitive tradition, 
as the germ in the seed, as a real and living element.’’* And 
Smith, the radical American, professor of mathematics and 
theological writer, declares frankly : “ The Jesus Christ of the 
original Christianity ’’ (by which he means the Christianity of 
the oldest period and the first days of the Apostolic preaching) 


‘““was not human but divine, the King of all kings, the Lord 


of all lords, the Saviour, the Redeemer, the protecting God.’’* 

The Christians, therefore, were from the beginning wor- 
shippers of their Lord; and the Church, from the first hour 
of its existence, regarded the adoration of its Founder as God, 
as the distinguishing expression of its being. ‘‘ There is no 
Gospel of Christ which has not proclaimed him as a heavenly 
Lord and King. The same men who sailed with Jesus on the 
Sea of Galilee, and ate and drank with him, have with death- 
defying courage and irrepressible joy proclaimed this same 
Jesus as the Lord exalted to the right hand of God, who has 
given to his followers divine strength and life, and made them 
certain of heavenly perfection. The speeches of Peter in the — 
first part of the Acts bear eloquent witness to the fact that 


1 See, later on, our ‘‘ Paul and the Divinity of Christ,” as well as the 
admirable treatment by Th. Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten 
Kirche, 271-308, 3rd ed. (1908), Die Anbetung Jesu im Zettalter der 
Apostel. 

2 Pfleiderer, Entwicklung des Christentums, 24, cf. 29. 

3 LD’ HLvangile et PE glise, 162 (1902). 

4 Der vorchristliche Christus, 41, cf. 33 (1904). 





The Divinity of Christ after this Death 331 


the earliest apostolic portrait of Christ also was glorified with 
divine splendour.’’! Even though the separate character- 
istics and the more minute elaboration of the divine portrait 
of Christ may have been for many still very obscure, and 
though the more exact execution and the theological and 
speculative apprehension of it may have preoccupied the first 
Christians but little, certain it is that the faith of the Church 
in the divinity of Jesus Christ was already complete on the 
first feast of Pentecost, and with that feast began its vic- 
torious march through the world. 

That points, however, with infallible certainty to the origin 
of this faith—to Jesus Christ, to his own divine consctousness, 
and to his own declaration of divinity. ‘There is,’’ writes 
Sanday,” “nothing more wonderful in the history of human 
thought than the quiet and unobtrusive way in which this 
doctrine, which is for us so difficult, took its place without 
struggle and controversy among Christian truths.’’ And the 
wonder increases when we think that the first confessors af 
the divinity of Jesus acknowledge this faith openly and with- 
out the least doubt immediately after the death of the Master, 
although their Jewish ideas, which they had brought with 
them out of the synagogue, must have encouraged anything 
rather than a belief in the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus. 
Their faith is and remains a riddle, in fact, a psychological 
impossibility, if Jesus Christ himself had not educated them 
up to this faith, and if he had not made upon the disciples im- 
mediately and directly the impression of a divine personality, 
and had not proclaimed himself to them as God. Hence it 
must be true, when the first messengers of the faith assure 
us that the supernatural and divine element, which they speak 
of in Jesus, goes back to his own words and command: “ He 
commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that 
he . . . is the Judge of the living and of the dead’’ (Acts 


Ceara B 
IJ].—Sr PAut AND THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 


1. Pauline Christology. 


Already in the Acts of the Apostles we have found an out- 
line of Pauline christology. What especially interested us 
in this were the beginnings of the christological views of the 
Apostle to the Gentiles, which existed already before the 
fifties. Of how Paul subsequently preached about his Master, 
and what he thought of him, his writings give us profound, 
abundant and comprehensive information. But, in addition, 
they teach us what the whole Church at that time thought of 
Jesus Christ. For not only may the Pauline teaching be 
regarded as an expression of the universal Christian doctrine, 


1 Feine, Paulus als Theologe, 44. 2 Epistle to the Romans, 16. 


332 Christ and the Critics 


but we gain from the writings of Paul the certainty that there 
was only one general Christian view of Jesus Christ, and that 
it did not occur to anyone to call it in question in any way. 
Thus the testimony of Paul becomes the testimony of all 
Christendom in the fifties and sixties. 

We observe, in the first place, that in the following in- 
vestigation we appeal to all the Pauline writings in the New 
Testament. The most of these are conceded by liberal critics 
to be, at all events, authentic. It is true, they still try to 
invalidate the genuineness of the pastoral Epistles and the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. But the reasons alleged for suspect- 
ing them are not at all tenable. 

Moreover, the fact is, after all, admitted that the Epistles 
whose authenticity is thus doubted are in substance Pauline— 
that is, they elaborate Pauline ideas. And precisely the 
christological ideas of the pastoral Epistles and the Epistle 
to the Hebrews agree essentially with those of the other 
writings of the Apostle. Even if, therefore, we should wish 
to eliminate the former, the Pauline portrait of Christ would 
still remain essentially the same. 

Then, however, the ‘‘ non-pauline”’ writings, thus elimin- 
ated, would, nevertheless, have to be regarded as additional 
productions of the same period. Besides the one witness for 
Christ, Paul, a second and a third would thus announce them- 
selves, and confirm and strengthen the utterances of the great 
Apostle; and so, instead of one problem, our opponents would 
have to solve two or three. They have, therefore, in any case 
no interest in placing the christological teachings of the 
pastoral Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews near to, yet 
apart from the christology of Paul. 

Still less is it allowable to discern in Paul’s writings a 
progressive christology. Our opponents, for the most part, 
make use of the well-known theory of evolution, adopted by 
the sceptical historians of religion in the case of Paul in order 
to make it more comprehensible how the Apostle has come, 
little by little, to the notion of his ‘‘ Super-christ,” in opposi- 
tion to history and the real record of Jesus. He, who from the 
first had brought with him an almost superhuman idea of the 
Christ-Messiah, has, it is said, under the influence of the 
resurrected and exalted Jesus, in whom he erroneously 
believed, raised his ideal of Christ ever higher and higher; 
and every later Epistle shows such a christological progress 
and evolution in comparison with previous Epistles until 
finally the loftiest flight and climax of idealization and meta- 
physical speculation was attained. 

Certainly a very prejudiced manipulation of history. There 
is also not a sign of justification for it, to say nothing of 
a single solid reason. Professor Karl Clemen, a biographer 
of Paul, who is certainly above suspicion, teaches his fol- 


’ 


Che Divinity of Christ after his Death 333 


lowers that “ Paul preached already at the beginning pre- 
cisely as he preached later; in the writings of Paul there is 
no evolution.’’? 

Is; then, the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ found 
in the Pauline christology ? 

The majority of liberal critics answer positively ** No.’ 
According to K. Weizsacker, the Christ of Paul is merely >) 
man in the sense of a higher, supermundane WOLD; es ide. with 
a spiritual body and an intelligence which thinks entirely in 
accordance with the spirit of God.”? Bernhard Weiss explains 
him also as “a man, who before and after his earthly life 
enjoys a unique supernatural origin and existence, which, 
however, is in no way above the grade of a creature.’’? H. J. 
Holtzmann asserts that Paul teaches only a “‘ man character- 
ized by a divine life on earth, and consequently also, in a 
spiritual form of existence above the earth, in the sphere of 
God.’’* Otto Pfleiderer declares : “ It is true, he [ Paul], like 
the primitive Church, considered him to be a Son of David, 
a naturally born man and Jew; but that applied only to his 
outward manifestation, which formed merely a short episode 
in the heavenly existence of the Son of God before and after 
his life on earth.’’ This Son of God is “a supermundane, 
Spiritual being, a heavenly man, an exact likeness of God ”— 
in fact, everything except the metaphysical Son of God.° 

Julius Grill defines the Christ of Paul as a “ celestial man, 
a pre-existing primitive man in the sphere of divine being.’’ 


“The life of this celestial man is pure spirituality . .. in 
contrast not only to all earthly and material being . . . but 
also to every creature-like nature, in so far as it . . . frees 


itself from the primal source of spirit and life.’’® 

Harnack calls the Christ of Paul temporarily certainly a 
“divine Being.’’ But that this expression must be inter- 
preted in a human sense, appears immediately from this 
adjoining declaration of the Berlin critic: ‘Paul, led by 
Messianic dogmas and convinced by the impression thus 
made, has founded the speculative theory that not only was 
God in Christ, but that Christ himself possessed a peculiar, 
heavenly nature.’’? 


1 Karl Clemen, Die Grundgedanken der paulintschen Theologie, 
in Theologische Arbeiten aus dem Rhetnischen Predigerverein, Neue 
Folge, 9 Heft (Ttibingen, 1907); Paulus, sein Leben und Wirken 
(Giessen, 1904); Die Entwicklung der christlichen Religion (Leipzig, 
1908). 

"2 bas apostolische Zeitalter, 120 f., 3rd ed. (Tiibingen, 1902). 

3 Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie, 300 ff. (Berlin, 1895). 

4 Neutest. Theologie, i, 94 (Freiburg u. Leipzig, 1897). 

5 Das Urchristentum, 7or ff., 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1902); Die Entstehung 
des Christentums, 143 ff.; Religionsphilosophie, 264 f., 3rd ed. (Berlin, 
Beg? 

Papen tye uiber adie Entstehung des IV Evangeliums, 68-70 
oa) 7 Wesen des Christentums, 116, 


334 Christ and the Critics 


Eduard von Hartmann finds that the Christ of Paul, before 
his earthly life, pre-existed not merely ideally but really, as a 
spirit, yet not as a celestial man, or (what is the same thing) 
as the Son of God, to which position he becomes exalted only 
by his resurrection, yet in such a way that he always remains 
a being subordinate to divinity.””* 

If we wish to lend credence to Adolf Jilicher, we find that 
Paul teaches, already working “ with a mythological way of 
thinking,’’ that “Christ is a celestial man . . . a man like 
ourselves, consisting of body and soul; both of which are, 
however, of a celestial substance—in fact, of precisely that 
substance which will also be ours in the period when all is 
made perfect. God has, in all his works, brought him forward 
as a Mediator.’’? H. Wendt says in different words the same 
thing, when he defines.the Pauline Christ as an “ Incarnation 
of a divine, pre-existent Spirit, in accordance with the Jewish 
conception of the Messiah;’’? yet not to be spoken of as 
actually God. 

O. Holtzmann similarly characterizes the christology of the 
Apostle Paul: ‘ For Paul, in place of the real historic Jesus, 
appeared the image of the Son of God, who once had been 
active in the creation of the world, and who since then had 
dwelt with God in a divine form as the celestial man.’’* 

For Arnold Meyer ‘‘ the Christ of Paul is the celestial Son 
of God . . . a heavenly image of the Godhead; a mediator, 
through whom the sublime Godhead had relation with the 
lower world. . . . It has not been possible for Paul, however 
high his conception of Christ, to call him God.’’? ‘“ For Paul 
he is the new spiritual man, originating from heaven... . 
who descended from heaven into this gloomy, earthly world, 
with its evil powers and dominions, to redeem us from 
them; 

This series of citations gives us sufficient information of 
how the liberal school of critics for the most part regards the 
Pauline christology. Among all their shades of views on 
other subjects, the majority of liberal critics maintain that 
Paul certainly teaches a Christ who pre-existed before his 
earthly life in some kind of form in heaven, and, after his 
death and resurrection, is continuing again his glorious life 
in heaven—a celestial man, the Messiah of the Jewish 


1 Das Christentum des N.T., 218 f. note (Sachsa i. Harz, 1905). 

2 Die Religion Jesu, in Kultur der Gegenwart, i, 87, No. 4 (Berlin 
u. Leipzig, 1906). 

3 System der gétilichen Lehre, ii, 351 (Gottingen, 1906). 

4 Christus, 124 £. (Leipzig, 1907). 

5 Was uns Jesus heute ist, 7 f., cf. 5 ff. 18-23 (Tiibingen, 1907)3 cf. 
Wer hat das Christentum begriindet, Jesus oder Paulus? 25 (Tibingen, 
1907). 

6 Bousset, Jesus, 97 (Tubingen, 1907); cf. Der Apostel Paulus (Tiibin- 
gen, 1906). 


The Divinity of Christ after His Death 335 


Apocalypse; but that Paul does not concede to his Christ a 
divine mode of existence and a divine nature. Really not? 
The Epistles of Paul, examined without prejudice, say the 
contrary. They teach the divinity of Christ clearly and ex- 
pressly. 

First of all, they attribute to the Saviour a thoroughly 
divine efficiency, which he has exerted on this world of 
creatures before, during and after his earthly life. Before his 
life on earth, in union with God the Father, he created the 
entire world. Again and again Paul attributes to the pre- 
existent Christ the work of creation. The thing is so evident 
that it does not even occur to the liberal investigators to deny 
it. They do, however, assert that Paul regards his Christ— 
relying on Neoplatonism and the pagan-Jewish doctrine of 
spirits—only as a world-former, a demiurge, and an inter- 
mediary, through whom God organized the world. Christ is 
“the foremost of the mediating forces, through whom the 
universe has been brought forth from God to a separate exis- 
tence ;”' there belongs to him only ‘‘a mediatorship in the 
creation of the world,’’? “a cosmic mediatory réle,’’ since 
‘“‘ God first forms the celestial man (Christ), and then, through 
the latter’s mediation, the earthly man.’’® 

But this means misunderstanding Paul thoroughly. Paul, 
on the contrary, teaches: ‘The Son of his love . . . who is 
the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. 
For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, 
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations, or 
principalities or powers. All things were created by him and 
in him, and by him all things consist ’’ (Col. 1, 13, 15-17). The 
Son of God “ made the world” and “upholds all things by 
the word of his power’’ (Heb. 1, 2, 3). Jesus Christ is the 
One, “‘ for whom are all things and by whom are all things ”’ 
(Heb. ii, 10). Therefore, he is not a mere world-framer, a 
spiritual being in human form, who is himself a creature, and 
plays merely the part of mediator. Rather is Jesus Christ the 
Creator of the world. He is the first-born Son of God, who 
was brought forth by God before all creation; all spiritual 
beings owe their existence to him; He is not the mere bearer 
of a mediatory réle, the instrument which God made use of in 
creating the world, and which he then threw aside again, but 
he himself “made the world,’ “it is created by him,’’ and 
“through the word of his power all things are upheld.’’ 
“By him all things consist.’’ And, as the world owes its 
origin to him, so he is also the divine final purpose of the 
world; ‘“‘ for him and by him are all things created.’’ Exactly 
the same as Paul elsewhere says of God the Father : ‘“ To us 
there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and 


1 Jiilicher, of. czt., a Bi iWeiss pag. C28), 303 
(te: On Holtzmann, ih Gib ip Trost. 04h. 


336 Christ and the Critics 


we unto him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all 
things, and we by him ”’ (1 Cor. viii, 6). 

And like the Creator, so is he also the Redeemer of the 
world, after it had through sin fallen from its origin and final 
aim: ‘‘ God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself ” 
(2 Cor. v, 19). ‘‘ When the fulness of time was come, God 
sent his Son, made of a woman, . . . that we might receive 
the adoption of sons’’ (Gal. iv, 4-6). ‘“ Even when we were 
dead in sins, [God] hath quickened us together in Christ (by 
whose grace you are saved), and hath raised us up together 
and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, through 
Christ Jesus” (Eph. ii, 4-6). ‘‘ In whom we have redemption 
through his blood, the remission of sins’’ (Col. 1, 14). He is 
the source of grace and healing (2 Thess i, 12, 13), of justifi- 
cation (Gal. ii, 17; Eph. ii, 14-18), of salvation (1 Tim. i, 15), 
of supernatural redemption and eternal glory (Col. i, 27; 
2 Tim. ii, 10; iv, 18, etc.). Jesus Christ is, in a word, “the 
author of salvation ’’ (Heb. i1, 10). 

However, Paul is perfectly aware that “ salvation,’’ super- 
natural grace, redemption, blessedness and glorification are 
the work and act of God. ‘It is not of him that willeth, nor 
of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy ’’ (Rom. 
ix, 16). ‘‘{[God] hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he 
will he hardeneth ” (Rom, ix, 18). From God comes the pre- 
destination, from God comes the calling, from God comes 
justification and from God comes glorification : “ And whom 
he predestinated, them he also called; and whom he called, 
them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also 
glorified ’’ (Rom. viii, 30). 

On the one hand, therefore, both the creation and the 
redemption of the world are the work and act of the Son of 
God and the Saviour, Jesus Christ. On the other hand, both 
creation and redemption are purely a divine act and a work 
of divine omnipotence. It is clear that Paul thereby pro- 
claims the divinity of Jesus Christ. 

But omnipotence is only one of those divine characteristics 
which Paul ascribes to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He 
extols no less emphatically his omniscience. Christ is to him 
“the power of God and the wisdom of God”’ (1 Cor. i, 24). 
‘*In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” 
(Col. ii, 3). Thereby is expressed in substance John’s doc- 
trine of the Logos, which reaches its climax in the statement 
that Jesus is the wisdom, knowledge and word of God. As 
such, the Christ of Paul has, of course, not only existed with 
God before his earthly life, but there belongs to him a pre- 
existence actually without a beginning—Eternity. Before all 
worlds were made, he was produced from God, as ‘‘ the Son 
of his love, the image of God, the first-born of every creature ” 
(Col. i, 15). And since by him the creation was effected, and 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 337 


thereby time itself was created, the chronological order and 
the transitoriness of created thing's become all the more the 
standard by which to estimate the eternity and immutability 
of the Son of God. “What is said of the eternity of Jehovah 
in the Scriptures is now applied by Paul to Jesus Christ: 
‘Thou in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the earth; and 
the works of thy hands are the heavens. They shall perish, 
but thou shalt continue; and they shall all grow old as a 
garment; and as a vesture shalt thou change them. But 
thou art the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail’’ (Heb. i, 
10-12).. As God is extolled in the sacred books as the in- 
variable and unchangeable, and on that account eternal Being, 
so similarly it is also said: “Jesus | ‘Christ, yesterday, and 
to-day ; and the same for ever’ (Heb. xiii, 8). : 

The divine attributes of Jesus presuppose absolutely his 
divine nature. Paul affirms this by praising Christ as “ the 
image of God”’ (2 Cor. iv, 4), ‘the image of the invisible 
God ’’ (Col. i, 15), “the brightness of his glory and the figure 
of his substance ’’ (Heb. i, 3). 

Christ is not merely made, like man, ‘“ after God’s image ”’ 
(Gen. i, 26); no, he is, in accordance with his own nature, the 
image of God, his own divine likeness. Thereby he is exalted 
above all human spheres; the essential image of God can be 
only a divine being. 

Paul brings up this thought, found in the Epistle to the 
Corinthians, again in his Epistle to the Colossians. He 
asserts that the divine likeness in Christ finds its explanation 
only in the fact that Jesus is the first-born of God. In his 
nature and substance Christ is born of God; in him ‘“‘all the 
attributes of the Father are concentrated.’’! 

This thought is in harmony with what is said in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, when Paul speaks of Christ as “ the first- 
begotten”? Son of God (Heb. i, 6), as the Creator and 
Redeemer of the world (Heb. i, 2), and the “ brightness of 
God’s glory and the figure of his substance ’’; and therefore, 
raised above all creatures, he “sitteth on the right hand of 
the majesty on high’’ (Heb. i, 3). 

As this image and essential likeness of the invisible God, 
Christ is one Godhead with the Father. In contrast to the 
polytheism of the pagan world, the Apostle declares power- 
fully that “there is no God but one’”’ (1 Cor. viii, 4). But 
he at once and very emphatically unites, as this one divine 
being, the two Persons, God the Father and the Son Jesus 
fehirisiey .1y.et tous there i is but one God, the Father . . . and 
one Lord (Jehovah), Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. viii, 6). 

Accordingly, Jesus Christ, who passed through this world 
in human form, is not, after the fashion of men, a child and 


1 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 46 (Tubingen, 1909). Therefore he is 
‘ the firstborn before all creatures, the image of the invisible God.’’ 
I. Pepe 


338 Christ and the Critics 


son of God by divine grace, but a child of God by nature. 
And, in truth, he does not possess merely a portion, a ray, of 
the divine nature, as the Gnostic doctrine of emanations said 
of the world-framer. Rather does the whole and undivided 
nature of God belong to the Saviour Jesus Christ. ‘‘In him 
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally ” (Col. 11, 9). 

Only out of humble love to us has he assumed human 
nature and a human form, although he had already existed 
with the Father in a divine form of being, and even in that 
form of a human servant he remained fully conscious of his 
equality with God, and was entitled to divine honour and 
adoration: ‘‘ Who, being in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God; but emptied himself, taking 
the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and 
in habit found as a man; he humbled himself, becoming 
obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. For which 
cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name 
which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth and 
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that 
the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father” 
(Phil. ii, 6-11). 

Even scholars, who otherwise do not concede that the Christ 
of Paul is God, cannot help recognizing that, according to this 
passage in the Epistle to the Philippians, “ Jesus Christ has 
existed from all eternity in the form of God in a godlike state 
of being,” and that he is a “‘ divine, pre-existing being,”? 
‘*a divine power,’’® ‘‘ a divine being.’ 

Having reached this high ideal point in his preaching of the 
Godhead of Jesus, Paul now goes on to the explicit confession 
that Christ is the Son of God, Lord and God. 

Paul undoubtedly from the beginning conceived the naming 
of Christ as the Son of God in the metaphysical, not in the 
moral sense. For him the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is not 
at all a mere man, specially beloved of God, a child of adoption 
and grace. This is clear to every one who reflects that the 
apostle wrote and preached in the Greek language and for 
Greek readers. While the appellation Son of God, according 
to Semitic linguistic usage, could mean an adoptive son as 
well as a real, essential Son of God, the Greek connected 
with it only one—the latter—signification. Moreover, in the 
writings of Paul this conception of the title Son of God can be 
demonstrated particularly and in detail. 


1 H. v. Soden, Der Brief des Apostels Paulus an die Philippaer, 45, 

2nd ed. (Tiibingen, 1906); also Ad. Jiilicher, Die Religion Jesu, l.c., 86 
2 Gustav Kriiger, Dreteinigkett u. Gotimenschhett, 86 (Tiibingen, 1905). 
3 id. 


4 Weinel, Paulus. Der Mensch und sein Werk, 245 f. (1904); cf. 
Johannes Weiss, Christus. Die Anfange des Dogmas, 27 ff. (Tiibingen, 
1909). 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 339 


At the first glance, it strikes us as remarkable that the 
apostle uses the title Son of God in the most solemn passages 
of his Epistles and in the most sublime utterances about Jesus 
Christ. When he wishes to give prominence to the infinite 
love of the Father and the immeasurable humility and con- 
descension of Jesus, which is involved in the incarnation (Rom. 
1, 1-3; Vili, 3); when he wishes to prove triumphantly the 
sublimity and blessing of the Gospel of Jesus (Rom. i, 9; 
2 Cor. i, 19); when he desires to extol in jubilant strains the 
certainty and divine blessedness of reconciliation and redemp- 
tion through Jesus Christ (Rom. v, 10; viii, 1; Gal. iv, 6); 
when he wishes to reveal overwhelmingly the whole might 
and grandeur of the Saviour Jesus Christ (Rom. i, 4; Phil. 11, 
9; Heb. i, 2); when he summons his readers to faith in Jesus 
Christ (Gal. ii, 16, 20); and to his invocation everywhere 
(x Cor. i, 1-9); at the commencement and the conclusion of 
the Epistles, where he calls down upon the believers the grace 
and peace of God; in all these instances Paul calls Jesus Christ 
preferably the Son of God. And correspondingly he also calls 
God, in the most solemn moments and formulas of confession, 
“ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ’’ (Rom. xv, 6; 
2 Cor. 1, 3; xi, 31). All this points clearly to relations on 
the part of Jesus towards men and his Father in heaven 
entirely unlike those which could result from an adoption of 
the man Jesus, who is especially loved by God and is by him 
selected to be the Christ—that is, the Messiah. 

If we inspect the subject still more closely, it can be easily 
seen how far removed Paul is from considering the title Son 
of God as equivalent to the liberal notion of a ‘‘ Messianic 
child of God, through favour,’’ or even to the orthodox 
notion of the Messiah—Christ. The expression Son of God 
in the writings of Paul nowhere passes for a synonym or 
expression for Christ. Rather does it describe the more 
intimate relations in which Christ, the Messiah, stands 
towards God the Father. 

Now, it is true that in several passages the love of the 
Father to his Son is made especially prominent (Rom. v. 10; 
Vili, 3, 323 Gal. iv, 4; Col. 1, 15); but even H. Weinel frankly 
concedes that nevertheless “‘ very often the words Son of God 
also stand, without any such sentiment, purely as a name for 
the divine nature of the Messiah.” And Johannes Weiss 
points it out as erroneous to explain the passages in which the 
love of God to the Son is strongly emphasized ‘‘ in such a way 
that the sonship is only another expression for love, and that 
because God so loved this being he is the Son of God. On 
the contrary, because he is the Son, therefore God loves him. 

Not a relation of affection, confidence or adoption, and 
not a figurative paraphrase of a moral or natural similarity 


1 Weinel, Paulus, 252. 


340 Christ and the Critics 


of nature, but here [in the writings of Paul] ‘Son’ means 
what it is wont to mean—namely, descent from God. Not 
in the sense of a peculiar form of his human birth’2:4-. 2: his: 
pre-existent Being has its origin already in God and certainly 
in a unique way.’’} 

Still more frequently than with the appellation “Son of 
Shik ’? however, does Paul address the Saviour Jesus Christ 

fi Kyrios, Lord; our Kyrios, our Lord.”’ 

It is clear from the Pauline writings that the Christians of the. 
time of the Apostle epitomized their faith in Jesus Christ most 
frequently in the name Kyrios, Lord. The confession of faith 
in Jesus, as the Lord, was considered as one of the holiest 
acts of a Christian. °‘‘ No’man can say ‘the Lord Jesus’ 
but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor. xii, 3)... This confession is a 
necessary condition of salvation: “ If thou confess with thy 
mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath 
raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved’”’ (Rom. 

x, 9).. Hence this confession is to be on the lips of all: “That: 
every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in 
the glory of God the Father’’ (Phil. ii, 11). From this it ts 
evident that by the name “‘ Lord’’ the Most High is meant. 

In fact, we know that, for the contemporaries of St Paul 
and for his fellow-believers, Jewish and Greek as well, Kyrios 
was equivalent to Jehovah, Adonai, God.” Moreover, it can 
be positively proved that Paul regards the title “ Kyrios’’ in 
the above sense and in no other. 

Paul does not hesitate a moment by quotations from the 
Old Testament, unrestrictedly to apply to Christ the terms 
Kyrios, Jehovah and Adonai, which are there applied to God 
(1 Cor. i, 31). Jehovah, who led the Israelites out of Egypt 
and through the desert, is, according to the teaching of Paul, 
none other than Jesus Christ (1 Cor. x, 4). The word of the 
prophet Joel (ii, 32), ‘“‘ Every one that shall call upon the name 
of the Lord shall be saved,’’ Paul refers directly to the Lord 
Jesus Christ (Rom. x, 13). In Ps. cil, 26, it is written of 
Christ the Lord: “ Thou in the beginning, O Lord (Jehovah), 
didst found the earth, and the works of thy hands are the 
heavens ’’ (Heb. 1, 10). In short, Paul applies to Christ, the 
Kyrios, the Lord, what is said in the Old Testament of 
Jehovah. 

If, therefore, the Kyrios-Christus is identical with the Old 
Testament Jehovah, then, according to the exposition of Paul, 
he is in the New Testament also on a par with God, is equal 
to him and identical with him. 

We see this most clearly and, at the same time, most 
certainly from the religious adoration and invocation of the 


1 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 35. 
2 See the argument in the previous section, ‘‘ The Divinity of Christ 
in the Early Church,” 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 341 


‘“Lord’’ by the Christians of the time of Paul. In contrast 
to the pagans, who honour many gods and lords, the Chris- 
tians honour only one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus 
Christ (1 Cor. viii, 5)... Thereby is expressed ‘the divine 
position of Christ and the divine honour paid to him.’’? 

This paying of divine honours to Christ as the ‘ Lord”’ 
was, at the time when Paul wrote his great Epistles—that is, 
about twenty to twenty-five years after the death of Jesus— 
the distinguishing mark of all Christians and the bond which 
united them. Paul addressed the Christians at Corinth as 
“those called to be saints, with all that invoke the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ in every place of theirs and ours ”’ 
(:Cor.iiy 2): 

Many things divided the Jewish Christians in Palestine, 
who still based their Christian piety more on the Mosaic Law, 
from the Gentile Christians in the Empire, to whom the 
Jewish forms of religious life were unknown. But all were 
united and harmonious in their worship of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. ‘‘ There is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek; 
for the same is Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon 
him’ (Rom. x, 12). 

The invocation of the Lord Jesus was not made merely for 
the purpose of adoration and recognition of his glory, but also 
for the purpose of petition and prayer. -It is the Lord Jesus 
from whom Paul and his fellow-Christians expect grace, help 
and mercy. The Apostle wishes and begs for the Churches 
grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus 
Christ (Rom. i, 7). By Jesus’ personal mercy Christians are 
brought into the state of grace (1 Cor. vii, 25; 1 Tim. i, 12). 
All are saved through his mercy (2 Tim. i, 16, 18). The Lord 
Jesus Christ is the eternal High Priest, who, in consequence 
of his own experience in life, knows how to have, and really 
does have, sympathy with the believers in all their conditions 
and in all their need of help. For this reason everyone is to 
approach in prayer the throne of grace and compassion, and 
in prayer call upon God and the Lord and High Priest Jesus, 
enthroned with him, for pity and help (Heb. 11, 17 f.; iv, 15 f.; 
so 1 Gi HF. Ji 

Paul tahini himself also to the Lord Jesus in temporal 
and bodily afflictions and infirmities (2 Cor. xii, 7-9; Gal. 
iv, 13). He is conscious that all the vicissitudes and occur- 
rences in nature and in human life depend upon the Lord 
Jesus and are his dispensations (1 Cor. iv, 19). This pre- 
supposes a faith that the “ Lord’’ is the source of all grace, 
that he possesses divine knowledge and divine might, and 
that there is no sphere of human and worldly life, over which 
he has not supreme power. This faith in the universal 
participation of the Lord Jesus in the government of the 


1 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 26. 


342 Christ and the Critics 


world Paul, in agreement with the early Church, sums up in 
the formula, “ sitting at the right hand of God’’ (Rom. viii, 
343 Colsiit;\1; Heb: 1,'3 5 vill, 45'x, 123 see Acts 11,193 5°¥il, gee 

So, then, Paul knows that he, even in regard to morals, is 
thoroughly dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ, as the highest 
and divine authority. The word and command of the Lord 
is the guiding line and binding rule for all moral thought and 
action (1 Cor. vil, 10; xii, 25). In every phase of his conduct 
the Christian must seek the Lord: ‘‘ Whether we live, we live 
unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord ”’ 
(Rom xiv, 8). 

Professor Johannes Weiss, of Heidelberg—not an orthodox 
theologian, but a very liberal thinker—epitomizes this whole 
religious relation of Paul and of the Pauline Christian churches 
in the following words : “ For Paul Jesus himself is an object, 
not only of faith, but of religious veneration. For him who 
begs for ‘grace and peace’ not only ‘from God our Father,’ 
but also ‘from our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Christ stands on an 
equality with God; .. . the practical piety of Paul and his 
churches expects from him [Christ] the same as from God— 
guidance, help, blessing. It gives to him not only praise, 
but also addresses prayers to him. ... Jesus is for the 
Apostle not only a Mediator, Leader and Model, but also 
absolutely the object of his religion.’’! 

Now, this is self-evident, if Paul, in respect to the name 
Kyrios, boasts of Christ that ‘‘ God hath exalted him, and 
hath given him a name which is above every name; that in 
the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in 
heaven, on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue 
should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of 
God the Father ’’ (Phil. ii, 9-11). The name “ Lord’? is, there- 
fore, the highest of all names, surpassing everything, tower- 
ing above every name of created beings, and conferring the 
right to the highest and unlimited veneration from all beings— 
the name of Kyrios, Jehovah, Adonai, God. Doubtless Paul 
thinks here of passages such as Isaias xlii, 8 and xlv, 24, 
and applies to Christ what God there says of himself : “I am 
the Lord God [ Kupsos 6 Oeds]: this is my name. I will not 
give my glory to another. . . . Every knee shall be bowed 
to me, and every tongue shall swear’’ (acknowledge God). 
Even Johannes Weiss remarks, concerning this appreciation 
of the name Lord in the Epistle to the Philippians : ‘‘ Christ is 
thereby exalted not only into a universal, divine sphere; he 
actually takes the place of Almighty God. Here, therefore, 
Kyrios can by no means have any less weighty meaning than 
Theos.’’? 


1 Johannes Weiss, Paulus und Jesus, 3, 72 (Berlin, 1900). 
2 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 28; cf. J. Kogel, Christus der Herr, 
Erlauterungen zu Philipp., ii, 5-11 (1908). 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 343 


Other modern critics also recognize this fact. According 
to B. Weiss, the Christ of Paul is the Kyrios, who “ at his 
second coming appears with divine omniscience, such as only 
the searcher of hearts can have” (1 Cor. iv, 5); who comes 
again with divine power to effect salvation at the last judge- 
ment, the administration of which itself already presupposes 
his divine rank (2 Cor. v, 10), in “contrast to all human 
mediation.”+ With the greatest clearness Eduard von Hart- 
mann says: “‘ The expression ‘ Lord’ is in the Pauline Gospel 
no mere polite form of address (as, for example, in Matt. 
Vii, 21); but signifies the Lord of the universe (Rom. x, 12), 
to whom all things are subordinate, except him who has 
subordinated all things to him... (1 Cor. xv, 27). Paul 
uses the word Lord... interchangeably for God and 
Christ.’’? 

In order, however, to exclude the last doubt, Paul calls the 
Saviour and Son of God directly God. Thus we read in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘‘ To the Son: thy throne, O God, 
is for ever and ever’’ (Heb. i, 8). In his letter to Titus he 
admonishes the believers, that they should show themselves 
wholly faithful, ‘that they may adorn the doctrine of God 
our Saviour in all things’’ (Titus ti, 10). Paul hopes for 
** the blessed hope and glory of the great God and our Saviour 
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem 
us from all iniquity ’’ (Titus 11, 13). Jesus has been rejected 
by the Jews, ‘“‘ whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ, 
according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for 
ever’. (Rom. 1x, 5). 

The opponents of the divinity of Christ feel, on the one 
hand, the full force of this confession of Paul, and, on the 
other, show their impotence against him. The God-Christ of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, sharing the throne of the Father, 
is ‘‘no Pauline idea.” Can that be proved? As if that 
idea were not repeatedly uttered by Paul in some other form ! 
In regard to the passage in the letter to Titus, Johannes 
Weiss remarks : ‘‘ Yes, if we have the correct text, he [Paul] 
calls him absolutely our great God.’’? As if also there were 
a single trace of any other text in existence, which liberal 
critics like to call the ‘‘ correct” one. Also one tries in vain to 
explain away from Christ the testimony of the Epistle to the 
Romans, that “ God is over all things, blessed for ever’’ and 
to refer it to God the Father. Johannes Weiss is frank enough, 
in the face of such attempts, to affirm that the text “can 
refer only to Christ.’’* But he finds this confession of Paul 
‘* very remarkable . . . unthinkable.” Therefore, it has been 
‘‘ rightly taken to be a violation of the text.”* With the 


1 B. Weiss, Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie, 285 f., 6th ed. (Berlin, 
(1895). 2 Das Christentum des N.T., 178. 


) 
3 Christus, 68. 4 td., 29. 5 id, 


344. eo se cCbrist and-the Critics. < 


right. of the mailed fist. of uncritical caprice, yes; for no one 
can appeal here to any. other right. | 
That Paul calls the Saviour God. 484: however, - in reality 
neither unthinkable nor remarkable, since he has used the 
equivalent expression /yrvios in.countless instances, as refer- 
ring to Christ, and, according to Johannes Weiss. himself, “in 
the..use of the name: Kyrios lies the. bpidge: to. the. last and 
highest utterances erable Christ. 291 
call Jesus- God. more. frequently... Later, too, and, iad 
down: to. the present time, Christ seldom receives from the 
Church the appellation “ God,’’ but almost universally that of 
the Son-of God, or Lord. . In the Apostolic period, however, 
the title‘ Lord ” was just as exclusively, and even more so, 
the official and universally used title for Christ. It best. ex- 
pressed the divine position-of Jesus towards the Father, as 
well as to the world and to mankind... Since of the full double 
title of God, ‘‘ The Lord-God.”’ (Jehovah-Elohim, Kvpsos 0 Geds), 
the- former was given to Christ and the second. to the Father, 
the divinity and unity of both were-clearly expressed. . And, 
moreover, one. thus avoided the.danger of wounding the 
strictly monotheistic. views _of the Jewish Christians and also 
of giving to the Greek Christians any occasion for a polythe- 
istic, or dualistic, interpretation of the Christian idea of God. 
Thus can the christology of: Paul be outlined in its main 
features. It really needs the courage of desperation, in face 
of this, still to maintain the almost stereotyped declaration of 
liberal criticism that the Christ of Paul. is. merely a pre- 
existent, spiritual being, a celestial man, not essentially dif- 
ferent from us men. The opponents of the. divinity of Christ 
themselves cannot really believe it. .Thus H. J. Holtzmann 
puts a great interrogation point before his. Pauline celestial 
man by remarking that the Apostle knows ‘only of a man 
with a divine element of Itfe on earth.’’*. Pfleiderer examines 
the Pauline assertions about the “ celestial man ’’ Christ, and 
comes finally to the conclusion that “By them the essential 
foundation of his divine sonship in the super-theocratical 
metaphysical sense is positively laid.’’? It is all very well 
for Jilicher loudly to proclaim his conviction that the Christ 
of Paul “is a>celestial.man...-,...-There-remains.the. fact 
that Christ is the most exalted among the mediatory forces.’’4 
It must, however, -also be conceded by him that “In the 
Epistle to the Philippians, chapter. ii, the pre-existence of 
Christ Jesus in the form. of. God is unequivocally taught. 
Only when the time had come:did he lay this aside and assume 
the form of a~servant.’?°.. According. to. H...Weinel,. the 


Liid., 28: 2 Neutest, Theologte, i, 94. 
3 Das Urchristentum;. 1, 227, 2nd eas 
4 Die Religion Jesu, l.c., 87. Ric; 86, 


The Divinity of Christ after ibis Death 345 


celestial Son of God, Jesus, ‘stands, on the whole, still below 
God’’; he is “not. himself God”; and yet. Weinel must 
acknowledge that the Christ of Paul is a “divine Being, 
and that we find the beginnings of this doctrine most clearly 
in the writings of Paul.’’? 

Paul Wernle concedes. that Paul places his Christ on the 
‘same footing with the God of Old Testament revelation.® 
Then he continues: ‘“ What wonder, if-now the fulness of 
the Godhead dwells in him [Christ] corporeally? ... Son 
of God, cross and resurrection. are here [in the Pauline 
Epistles ] so interpreted that...the start is given for the 
subsequent christological dogma. fast arpold Meyer similarly 
characterizes the Christ of Paul as “the celestial Son of God, 
who did not belong to earthly humanity, but lived in glory 
and divine resemblance to God. The Son is the exact image 
of the Father, and just as a Son—before all creatures—was 
born in the likeness of his Father, and bears within himself 
his entire fulness... . At last, however, the Father allowed 
him to descend to this. earth in human form for the final 
redemption of humanity and of the whole world. 44 te 
Christ of Paul becomes the God of this [ Christian] people. ie 
And yet “this ’’? (Pauline Son of God) ‘is not.God’’ !° 

The two. radically liberal critics, Wilhelm Wrede_ and 
Gustav Kriiger, express themselves on this point more frankly 
and with manly courage. The former concedes at once that 
Paul sees in Jesus, exactly as the orthodoxy of the Church 
does, ‘‘a supermundane, divine being ... an incarnate 
divine being .... a_divine..Christ.”” The latter acknow- 
ledges with equal frankness that ‘this Christ of Paul is a 
divinely pre-existent being. . . . It is true, the divine being, 
of whom Paul speaks, is not yet called by ‘him the ‘ Logos,’ 
but even though the word is lacking, the fact is nevertheless 
there.}?* 

This unavoidable conclusion forces itself even on the 
rationalist Renan. He says: “In the last writings of Paul 
one finds a theory about Christ which presents him as a kind 
of divine person; a theory which is thoroughly analogous to 
that of the Logos, and which will subsequently take its final 
form in the writings attributed to John. ... The earlier 
and positively authentic writings of Paul contain the germ of 
this new form of expression. Christ and God are inter- 
changed in them almost as synonymous beings; Christ exer- 


1 Weinel, Paulus, 250. ltd. 243. 

3 Die Anfénge unserer Religion, 238, 2nd ed. (Tiibingen, 1904). 

42d., 238, 243. 

5 Wer hat das Christentum begriindet, Jesus oder Paulus? 255) 31s O8 
(Tibingen, 1907). So cas, aie 


7 W. Wrede, Paulus, 84, 86, 87, 2nd.ed. (Tiibingen,.1907). 
8 Gustav Kriiger, Das Dogma von der Dreteinigkett und Gottmensch- 
heit in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 86 (Tubingen, 190s). 


346 Christ and the Critics 


cises divine functions; he is invoked as God; he is the con- 
necting Mediator with God. ... The veneration of Jesus 
. assumes in Paul the proportions of a real cult of adora- 
tion, which until then no Jew had shown to the son of a 
woman.’’+ 
All this sufficiently proves that liberal critics do not accom- 
plish the wonderful feat of eliminating the divinity of Christ 
from the theology of St Paul.? 


2. Origin of the Pauline Christology.—Paul and Jesus. 


It is precisely on this account that freethinking critics give 
themselves such unspeakable trouble to put the christological 
views of Paul in opposition to those of Christ and the first 
Christians, and to brand the former as the clumsy result of 
the most extravagant speculation and the morbid mentality 
of Paul. They construct an explanation of the origin and 
development of Paul’s idea of Christ somewhat as follows : 

Before his conversion on the way to Damascus, Paul was 
the most violent persecutor of Jesus, because he saw in 
him the exact opposite of what he venerated as the Messianic 
ideal. Saul was expecting the Messiah in the form of the 
apocalyptic heaven-sent man; and, basing his theory on the 
late-Jewish theory of angels, as well as on the Platonic- 
Alexandrian and old oriental mythology, he pictured to him- 
self this heaven-sent man as a supermundane, spiritual being, 
as a pre-existing being intermediate between God and the 
world, as a world-framer, a second Adam, etc. With such a 
Christ the historical, earthly man Jesus had no similarity 
whatever. Hence he seemed to Saul the personification of the 
false Messiah. 

Then suddenly occurred the great change near Damascus. 
In a fancied vision Saul thought that he beheld the hated 
Nazarene, Jesus, descending from on high in a celestial form 
of light, just like the Messianic celestial man, and that he 
spoke with him and declared that he was the Messiah so 
longed for by him. Saul regarded this inward experience as 
something actual, believed in it, and transferred his views 
of the Messianic celestial man and intermediate being to the 
historic Jesus. 

Thus he became, after the event on the way to Damascus, 
the founder of an entirely new christology. This is not at all 
the continuation of the Christian line, which starts from Jesus 
and runs across the first Apostles and the original Church. 
On the contrary, it must be considered as a thorough trans- 
formation of that line. In contrast to the Gospel of Jesus 


1 Renan, L’Antéchrist, 76, 77, 79 (1873). 

2 See W. Beyschlag, Die Christologte des N. T., 176-256 (Berlin, 
1866); Rich. Drescher, Das Leben Jesu bet Paulus (Giessen, 1900) ; 
F. Prat, Za Théologie de St Paul (1908). 


The Divinity of Christ after Dis Death 347 


and the early Church, it is something new and secondary. 
Our principle must, therefore, be: ‘‘ Away from Paul! Back 
to the first disciples and to Jesus !’’ 

This, in bold outlines, is the development and explanation 
of the Pauline christology according to modern liberal criti- 
cism. In substance all these ideas are found already in the 
Tibingen rationalist, F. Christian Baur? and his pupil, 
Holsten,* and also in Hausrath.* Their successors rejected 
the hypothesis twice utterly, until it was completed in its 
present seemingly refined psychological form. 

Its latest representatives are chiefly Briickner,> H. Weinel,® 
Paul Wernle,’ Otto Pfleiderer,* Eduard von Hartmann,?® and 
Wilhelm Wrede.1® That the Damascus episode was only a 
vision, a religious experience, a revolution of the spiritual 
life, is supposed also by Clemen,!! G. Kriiger,!? and Johannes 
Weiss.’* The hypothesis of a vision passes now everywhere 
as a dogma of liberal investigation. From the standpoint of 
the ‘‘ modern conception” the ‘‘ experience” of Damascus 
must be a vision. 

This psychological, or rather psychopathological concep- 
tion, which is to make every supernatural influence of Christ 
on Paul unnecessary, and is to expose the Pauline christology 
as a figment of the imagination, is interesting as a drama, 
which could be entitled ‘‘ The Tragedy (or, if preferred, 


1 This explanation of Pauline christology has been recently rejected 
on the Protestant side by Julius Kaftan in Jesus und Paulus, a friendly 
polemical pamphlet against the popular books on religious history by 
Bousset and Wrede (Tubingen, 1906); by Theodor Kaftan, Der Mensch 
Jesus Christus, der einige Mittler zwischen Gott und den Menschen 
(Berlin, 1908); Paul Feine, Paulus als Theologe (Berlin, 1906); 
LTheologie des N. T., 230-593 (Leipzig, 1910); Arnold Ruegg, Der 
Apostel Paulus und sein Zeugnis von Jesus Christus (Leipzig, 1906) ; 
McGiffert, Was Jesus or Paul the Founder of Christianity? (Amer. 
Journal of Theology, 1-20, 1909); W. Morgan, The /Jesus-Paul Con- 
troversy (Expositor, XxX, 9-12, 55-58). Of the above-named German 
investigators, however, only Feine expressly recognizes the divinity of 
Jesus in Paul’s writings. Ruegg and Julius Kaftan know how to 
conceal their thoughts. Theodor Kaftan sees in Paul’s Christ merely 
the human intermediary of salvation. 

Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi, 2nd ed. (1866). 

Evangelium des Paulus (1880). 

Der Apostel Paulus, 126 ff. (1872); cf. VM. 7. Zettgeschichte, ii. 442 f. 
Die Entstehung der paulinischen Theologte (1903). 

Paulus. Der Mensch und sein Werk, 243 ff. (Ttibingen, 1904). 

7 Die Anfange unserer Religion, 153-244, 2nd ed. (Tiibingen, 1904): 
Die paulintsche Theologie. 

8 Die Entstehung des Christentums, 111 f., 132 f., 143 ff. (Miinchen, 
1905); Das Urchristentum, i, 226, 2nd ed.; Religionsphilosophte, 718 ff., 
3rd ed.; Entwicklung des Christentums, 24 ff. 

9 Das Christentum des N. T., 200 f., 2nd ed. (Sachsa im Harz, 1905). 

10 Paulus, 2nd ed. (Ttibingen, 1907). 

11 Die Grundgedanken der paulinischen Theologte, 3 (1907). 

12 Dreteinigkeit und Gottmenschheit, 76-86 (Tiibingen, 1905). 

13 Christus; Die Anfange des Dogmas, 34-65 (Tiibingen, 1909); Paulus 
und Jesus, 16 ff. (Berlin, 1909). 


bo 


a on ff Ww 


348 ~ ~ -Cbrist and the Critics 


the Comedy). of Damascus, in three acts.” | Everything 
centres in the apparition of Damascus. Previous to that 
apparition, Paul is supposed to have already accumulated his 
christological ideas from Oriental, Greek and Jewish sources, 
_and to have elaborated them inwardly. On the apparition at 
Damascus he transferred them, in consequence of a trick of 
the imagination, to Jesus of Nazareth; after the apparition, 
with even greater definiteness, in preaching and in speculative 
thought, he gave permanent form to the christology thus 
acquired, but with a total misapprehension of the doctrine of 
Jesus and the primitive, historical tradition concerning the 
real life of Jesus. 

That is the Pauline show-piece of liberal criticism. Yet, 
after all, it is really only a coup de thédtre, and a very unreal 
one at that—only artificial work, not psychologically true art, 
and above all not history. 

Paul is supposed to have derived part of his christological 
ideas from Oriental-Greek Gnosis and mythology, and to have 
found the rest of them in the Jewish theories about angels 
prevailing in his own land. But there cannot be any serious 
talk of a gnostic-mythological vein in the whole christology 
of Paul. Gnosis is nothing more nor less than the antipodes 
of the Pauline theology. The doctrine of Paul and oriental 
mythology likewise mutually exclude each other. Paul pro- 
tests also in the most decided manner against every Gnostic 
and mythological addition, and, in fact, regards it as his 
life-work to contend most vigorously against the Gnostic and 
mythological view of the universe, It is to be hoped that this 
does not still need to be proved to anyone acquainted with the 
Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. ; 

The contrary opinions of modern critics seem to be nothing 
but interrogation points. For instance, Johannes Weiss 
accepts at once the ‘‘ polytheistic, mythological character ” of 
the Pauline christology, yet immediately adds the following 
astonishingly naive confession: “No one can prove that it 
was precisely these Babylonian models, or whether it was 
Egyptian or Greek ones, which through innumerable agencies 
worked upon the Pauline idea.’’! Otto Pfleiderer writes 
similarly: ‘‘The conception of Christ, as a supermundane, 
spiritual being, as a celestial man exalted above the angels, 
and as.a primeval Son of God . . . goes perhaps still farther 
back; we cannot as yet assert anything certain about it, 
but there 1s, nevertheless, ground for thinking that already 
in Indian legend the celestial spiritual being, which appears 
in Buddha and other figures of redeemers, is designated as 
‘the great man,’ and that in certain Jewish-Christian Gnostics 
the Redeemer-Spirit, which appeared in Jesus, is the same 
which was first incorporated in Adam. And with this there 


1 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 36. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 349 


was perhaps connected also the spiritual ideal man, whom 
Philo found taught in the first chapter of Genesis.’’* 

More thoughtful investigators substitute for this repeated 
‘““perhaps’’ a categorical “no.’’ A. Meyer acknowledges that 
Paul opposes his Christ, full of love and seriousness, to all 
other Gnostic powers.? Even the Logos doctrine of Philo, 
which would first of all have to be thought of, is, according 
to Paul Wernle, ‘too remote to come into consideration.’’* 
Bernhard Weiss* considers “the transference of any con- 
temporary philosophical problem to Christ as undemonstrable,”’ 
while H. J. Holtzmann smiles at the metamorphoses which 
Paul has already had to go through in modern criticism. 
‘First, the origins of his ideas have been purely Jewish; then 
they became largely Greek; later on rather ‘hellenistic’; 
soon again like those of the Old Testament. Now he forms 
an unswerving continuation of the life-work of Jesus, and now 
he makes a new start, which essentially ignores that life- 
work.’’> Paul Feine is finally no doubt right when he rejects 
the derivation of Paul’s Christ from Greek, Hellenic and old 
Oriental sources with the remark: “It cannot be regarded 
as a sign of sound judgement if the attempt is made over 
and over again in critical theology to construct the Pauline 
christology out of that origin.”® 

The only real question is, whether the Apostle took his idea 
of Christ from the Jewish Apocalypse. If Paul would pourtray 
his Christ merely as an apocalyptic ‘‘ celestial man,” as our 
opponents allow, then we could at least talk seriously about 
it. But, as we have seen, the figure of Christ is, in the writ- 
ings of Paul, thoroughly divine. The Jewish Apocalypse, how- 
ever, does not know of any such figure. But also, quite apart 
from the divinity of the Messiah, Paul’s teaching about Christ 
stands in most violent opposition to the apocalyptic theory 
of the Messianic celestial man. Not only orthodox theologians 
but the whole liberal school must concede that the chief 
characteristics of Paul’s doctrine of the Messiah were the 
doctrine of grace and redemption, the love of Jesus for man- 
kind, and his expiatory death for the sins of the world. There 
is not a single genuinely liberal critic who has not contested 
the Pauline christology for the very reason that it makes this 
doctrine of atonement, grace and redemption the central point 
of the Messiahship. 

But this fundamental feature of Paul’s doctrine of the 
Messiah is to the apocalyptic idea of the Messiah what fire 
is to water. It is, therefore, a flagrant contradiction of facts 

1 Die Entstehung des Christentums, 144 f. (Miinchen, 1905). 

Babes, TO. hy ree 2 

4 Die Religion des N. T., 140, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart und Berlin, 1908). 

5 H. J. Holtzmann, Das messtanische Bewusstsein Jesu, iii (Ttibin- 
gen, 1907). 

6 Paulus als Theologe, 32 (Gr.-Lichterfelde-Berlin, 1906). 


350 Christ and the Critics 


when the liberal theologians designate the Christ of Paul as 
an apocalyptic celestial man, and derive him from the Jewish 
Apocalypse. Johannes Weiss now sets this forth with great 
perspicacity, after surveying all the latest Pauline investiga- 
tion. He writes: ‘‘ Whence has Paul derived this portrait of 
Christ? From Jewish tradition? Where in the Apocalypse 
(of the Jews) is it written that the ‘ King-Messiah,’ ‘the Son 
of Man,’ the ‘ Judge’ is at the same time the incarnation of 
the love and grace of God? The theory that Paul, having 
come to faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, has transferred to 
him only the marks of the apocalyptic Messiah, here breaks 
down. He could not have taken this chief characteristic of 
the portrait of Christ from Judaism; here his own historical 
experience has enlarged and transformed his Jewish portrait 
of the Messiah in a most decided way.’’? 

Moreover, Paul himself asserts expressly that he neither 
took his portraiture of Christ from the Jewish Apocalypse, 
nor had known it previously, from any other source whatever, 
before the apparition on the road to Damascus. In the Acts 
of the Apostles, as well as in his Epistles, his idea of Christ 
appears to the persecutor as something entirely new, unex- 
pected and direct. Even Wrede must confess that “ Paul 
cannot have been won over already through instruction before- 
hand, so that the vision would become merely a secondary 
affair. He expressly denied human teaching to have been a 
foundation of his faith, and, in any case, the apparition must 
have had for him the character of something sudden and over- 
powering.” 

But let us suppose that Saul, at the time when he was 
travelling on the mountain road to Damascus, had taken with 
him his portrait of Christ already completed. Can what 
occurred near Damascus be explained thereby in a natural, 
psychological manner? Can any explanation of the fact be 
given that Saul now, suddenly, in comsequence of self-sugges- 
tion and hallucination (for that is what: our opponents assert), 
transferred his ideal of Christ to Jesus, and believed it to be 
incorporated in the hated Nazarene whom he was persecuting 
(1 Cor. xix, 9; Acts 1x; 1; xxi, 35 xxvi, 9)? . Exidentiygies 
the opposite. Hallucination only strengthens the impressions 
which a man has within him in a normal state. It would have 
caused the hate of the Pharisee Saul to have been turned into 
a veritable fury against Jesus and his claims to be the Messiah 
and the Son of God. That would have been the only possible 
result of the “ vision’’ of Damascus. If Paul, on the con- 
trary, in consequence of that vision, proclaims Jesus as the 
Messiah, the Lord and God, it is not psychologically explic- 
able; it is not natural, but either contrary to nature or super- 


1 Johannes Weiss, Paulus und Jesus, 51, 14. 
2 Wrede, Paulus, to. 


The Divinity of Christ after His Death 351 


natural.’ But if the conversion of Saul to faith in Christ 
cannot possibly be designated as a psychological result of the 
Damascus episode, it is thereby also proven that it cannot be 
merely a matter of a “‘ vision’’ or of a subjective, imaginary 
apparition, or of “an inward view, an hallucination ...a 
reflection of the soul, externalized, an objectifying of its own 
consciousness,’’? 

For such a vision there is wanting all real presupposition. 
The liberal critics, it is true, are able to describe with great 
enthusiasm and almost statistical exactness how this vision 
occurred. The christological problem, and the question 
whether Jesus of Nazareth was not, after all, the expected 
Messiah and Son of God, “ might, we may suppose, have 
moved the spirit of Paul on the way to Damascus; doubt as 
to the right of his previous conduct and as to the truth of his 
former faith, pierced his heart like a fiery dart, and put his 
soul and body into a state of the most fearful excitement. If 
we add to this the nearness of Damascus, forcing him to make 
a speedy decision, and the lonely silence and scorching heat 
of the desert, we shall be justified in the conclusion, that in 
such circumstances the occurrence of a visionary experience 
was not at all out of the range of other analogous experi- 
ences.’’> ‘It was, indeed, no wonder that a notorious 
visionary and epileptic, in such conflicts of the soul, during 
a fever in the desert (which was connected with an inflamma- 
tion of the eyes and perhaps an inflammation of the brain), was 
visited by an apparition of the Master of the Church which he 
was persecuting, as by an objective presentation of the doubts 
of his own conscience.’’* “ All this is connected with the con- 
dition of nerves and brain, which caused him at times to have 
convulsions and to see visions. . . . In connection with this, 
he felt nervous twitchings, which he interpreted as blows from 
a messenger of Satan. When, therefore, he fell prostrate 
near Damascus, saw a light, heard Christ speak, and then was 
blind for some days, the analogy of experience demands that 
we here also think of a vision, in which a profound psychical 
process, which has reached the highest tension, is relaxed.”° 

These are nothing but phrases, which flatly contradict the 
truth, as well as the text of the New Testament authorities. 
Instead of being tormented by doubts and qualms of con- 
science about his own conduct, and about the possible truth 
of the utterances of Jesus, “ Saul was breathing out threaten- 
ings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,’’ when 


1 Cf. E. Moske, Die Bekehrung des hetl. Paulus, eine exegetisch- 
kritische Untersuchung (Miinster, 1907). 

2 Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 111 f. 

* Pfleiderer, 2.¢,, 138: 

4 Ed. von Hartmann, Das Christentum des N.T., 201. 

5 A. Meyer, Wer hat das Christentum begriindet? 36, 69 f.; Die 
Auferstehung Christi, 295-298 (Tiibingen, 1905). 


352 Christ and the Critics 

he set out for Damascus (Acts ix, 1). According to his own 
confession, he was actually foaming with a blind rage to 
persecute Jesus of Nazareth even at the moment when the 
apparition near ‘Damascus occurred Aes ix, 43 XXIL, 4-8; 
XXVI1, 14). : 

The “ scorching heat of the desert’ and the “ desért-fever 
with inflammation of the eyes and brain’’ exist tS i in the 
heads of our critics, as also the desert itself? 

Moreover, whoever makes Paul a “ notorious visionary and 
epileptic,”’ as Hartmann, the philosopher of the unconscious, 
does ; or a “ sufferer from a disease of the nerves and brain,” 
as A. Meyer supposes; or, finally, with the novelist, Gustav 
Frenssen, and the theologian. and poet, Hausrath, makes him 

aes" thoroughly ill man, tormented by serious nervous and 
mental disorders,’’ and a “sentimental, even epileptic ’’ sub- 
ject of hysteria, will be branded as false by the work and 
writings of the great Apostle” as well as by expert medical 
opinion. ; 

It is true, Paul hes had visions, but not in the sense of the 
vagaries of an unbalanced mind, as our opponents imagine 
them, but in the sense of supernatural “visions and revela- 
tions of the Lord,’’ as Paul himself testifies (2 Cor. xii, 1), and 
such as often occurred in the first Christian Church with its 
wealth in gifts of grace. 

Moreover, from such “visions,’’ which he continually 
recognizes and designates precisely as such,* he wishes to 
keep the incident of Damascus perfectly distinct. This is for 
him a real, objective ‘“‘appearance’’ of Jesus. It was a per- 
sonal revelation of Christ, as real as the appearances of the 
risen Lord, of which Peter, James, the Twelve and five 
hundred disciples were witnesses (1 Cor. xv, 5-9). Jesus 
revealed himself to him to see and to hear (Acts ix, 17, 27; 
XXil, 14; Xxvi, 16). During his entire life Paul never doubted 
that he had seen the living Christ. To everyone he put the chal- 
lenging question : “ Have I not seen the Lord?”’ (1 Cor. ix, 1). 
Supported by this conviction, he ranks himself unhesitatingly 


1 ** For many hours south of Damascus there is no such desert at all. 
The region is, in fact, very well watered and fruitful, and was formerly 
much more so, Also that the simoon or sirocco has proved especially 
favourable to the creation of visions seems to me hardly probable in this 
locality.’,—Chr. E. Luthardt, Allg. Ev.-Luth. Kirchenzeitung, 3096 
(1906). 

2 “* Are these writings the work of a fool, or a deceiver, or an epileptic 
affected by sunstroke, or a crazy enthusiast? Is such achievement, as 
his, psychologically comprehensible, as coming from such an origin ?”’— 
F. Ballard, K6nig’s translation, Die Wunder des Unglaubens, 194 (Gr.- 
Lichterfelde-Berlin, 1903). 

8 See the opinion of Dr. Bliimke, in Rtiegg, Der Apostel Paulus und 
sein Zeugnis von Jesus Christus, 108; Jiilicher, Zinleitung in das N.T., 
26 ff.; Simon Weber, Die Gotthett Jesu u. die paulinschen Briefe, in 
Jesus Christus, Vortrage in Freiburg im B., 69 ff. (1908). 

4) Acts X,°9 3 Xi, 6} Xiiy' 7s RVI, Os RVIL, 9; S11, 073 2 Coremige 


The Divinity of Christ after bis Death 353 


with the old Apostles, and is recognized by all as a disciple 
and witness for Jesus of equal rights with them. Even hostile 
criticism cannot invalidate this. ‘‘ Paul certainly understands 
by the revelation, which he had received, not merely a gradual 
enlightenment of his way of thinking and feeling. For him 
it is a matter of the wonderful procedure of a certain moment, 
when he saw the Lord in radiant glory—in this the allusions 
in his Epistles agree with the Acts of the Apostles.’’} 

Not only that. We have, moreover, the incontrovertible 
evidence that Paul did not deceive himself when he attributed 
to the Damascus apparition objective reality. A proof of 
this is the fact that the fellow-travellers of Saul were also 
involved in the apparition; that “the light from heaven shone 
also around his companions, a light which surpassed the 
splendour of the sun’’; and that under the powerful impres- 
sion of the apparition all were thrown to the ground.? A 
proof of the reality of the apparition is the blindness of Saul 
in consequence of the brilliance, quite unbearable for his 
physical powers of vision (Acts ix, 8); and a proof of the 
reality of the appearance of Christ is finally the inward, 
spiritual illumination and transformation, the moral and 
religious new-creation of Paul, and his indestructible con- 
sciousness that he must thereafter serve Christ with body 
and life, with all his senses and powers, and with the dedica- 
tion to him of his entire being. 

All this proves, as Bernhard Weiss acknowledges, that the 
appearance of Jesus Christ to Paul “ cannot be attributed to 
a psychologically explicable vision.”® Unless liberal criti- 
cism is willing to give up every sort of explanation, then 
it must, willingly or unwillingly, deign to confess that an 
actual, obvious apparition was vouchsafed to Saul near 
Damascus, in which he saw with his own physical eyes the 
risen and glorified Saviour, heard with his own physical ears 
his voice, and received a corresponding inward revelation. 

Now, from this apparition and vevelation—that is, from 
instruction given by Jesus himself—Paul, first of all, drew 
the material for his Gospel. ‘The Gospel which was preached 
by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive 
it of man, nor did I learn it but by the revelation of Jesus 


1 A. Meyer, Wer hat das Christentum begrindet? 35. 

2 Acts ix, 7; Xxvi, 13. The unessential differences in the three reports 
—Acts ix, 7; Xxii, 9; and xxvi, 14—are explained without difficulty. 
See the explanations of Joseph Knabenbauer, Commentarita in Actus 
Afpost., 161 ff. (1899); F. X. Pdlzl, Der Weltapostel Paulus, 38, note 1 
(Regensburg, 1905); Ruegg, Der Apostel Paulus, 53; Anton Seitz, Das 
Evangelium vom Gottessohn, 496, note 6 (Freiburg, 1908). Only one 
who, with Baur, Wendt, Pfleiderer and other critics, wishes to make 
it entirely plausible ‘‘ that the details of this threefold narrative can 
make no claim to exact historicity,’’ can find a contradiction here, 
Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 132. 

8 Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie, 203 f. 


I, 23 


354 Christ and the Critics 


Christ ’’’ (Gal. i, 11, 12). And the essential point of this 
revelation was again the christology, the mystery of the 
Person of Jesus Christ, as the Apostle all his life after the 
catastrophe of Damascus preached it. “ When it pleased 
him, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called 
me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach 
him among the Gentiles’’ (Gal. i, 15, 16). That is the first 
and most important source of the Pauline christology. 

Of course, there can be no thought of Paul’s having 
learned by that experience the whole Gospel and the whole 
historical life of Jesus. But Jesus drew him thereby into a 
vital association with his life, allowed him to have a wonder- 
fully profound insight into his teachings, and convinced him 
of his Messiahship and real divine sonship. The evangelical 
and christological knowledge of Paul was supplemented and 
in all respects completed by the fact that he penetrated into 
the life and doctrines of the Master by the aid of the original 
disciples, the original Church and the earliest traditions. 
That was Paul’s second way of approaching Christ. 

The liberal critics bar this way. Although their ‘* psycho- 
logical” explanation of the Pauline christology before and 
at Damascus has proved itself an absurdity, they nevertheless 
wish to play out the third act of the drama. After the event 
at Damascus, Paul, it is claimed, further developed and 
elaborated his christology in a fantastic manner, without any 
regard to the real life of Jesus and to the historical tradition 
of it in the early Church, and did so in accordance with the 
imaginary vision on the road to Damascus, and on the ground 
of his preconceived ideas of the Messiah, which he had already 
brought with him to Damascus. His conv ersion “ drew him 
away from all such connections, and also out of any con- 
nection with the first Apostles, as men (what they once were 
is, to him, a matter of indifference), and, indeed, from any 
connection with the earthly Jesus, who is also crucified, after 
the flesh, and is for him no more there. Paul lives only with 
the Christ whom he had come to know ’’!—that is, whom he 
imagined he had seen. ‘‘ Thereby every human tradition is 
rejected, even that transmitted by the first Apostles. ... 
Paul will learn nothing, but wishes rather to show and repre- 
sent what he has done independently.’’? Paul has ‘“ woven 
into his Christian way of thinking, together with his own 
experience, current opinions of his own time, and also pagan, 
Greek, Oriental or Jewish-Gnostic traditions. ... If Paul, 
as we suppose, grew up with such views from the time of 
his youth, he must, of course, have absorbed them, and 
cannot possibly have been subsequently aware whence he had 
derived them.”’* For the very reason that Paul uncon- 


1 A. Meyer, Wer hat das ars SRT EM begrindet? 72, 
* 1d.,.32. 1.5 33. 


The Divinity of Christ atter this Death 355 


sciously applied to Christ his own and others’ non-christian 
ideas, and imagined that he had received everything, his 
whole, complete portrait of Christ “through the revelation 
of God,’’ it can be finally again asserted that “it was not 
Paul who created his Christ, but that his Christ (the imagined 
one of his experience) laid hold of him, overpowered him, 
and became too strong for him. . . . Hence we stand before 
a mystery in religion, which mocks at every explanation.’’* 
That is the end of the “ psychological explanation’’ of the 
Pauline christology. No liberal critic can give any other 
than Meyer has given. At most, they honour the “ second 
founder of Christianity’? with additional designations, such 
as “the involuntary product of rabbinical speculation and 
dialectics,”?, a man with ‘‘ the most extravagant specula- 
tions,’’? a “ theological premature birth,’’* ‘(a brother of the 
visionaries,”’ ‘‘a man who had become a fool through 
boasting . . .’”’ of “arrogant blindness . . . and proud self- 
sufficiency,’’ which “scorned to learn doctrines from the lips 
of the personal disciples of the Master, before he preached 
them.’’® : 

That with such invectives the “ mystery that mocks at every 
explanation’’ is not psychologically explained is patent to 
everyone. Moreover, the mere attempt to account psycho- 
logically for the final christology, as Paul presents it im- 
mediately after his conversion, proves itself immediately to be 
unpsychological. Only in so far as it could be established that 
Paul before the incident at Damascus carried about with him 
his conception of Christ already complete, and that he at 
Damascus simply transferred these ideas of Christ to Jesus 
of Nazareth of his own accord and independently, could the 
later Pauline christology be designated as a psychological 
product and psychological development of his former life. 
It has, however, been proved that this supposition is not 
correct. Whoever, in spite of that, builds up a theory upon 
it is building a castle in the air. 

But also, quite apart from the incorrectness of our oppo- 
nents’ assumptions, the christology of Paul, after the Damas- 

i Meyer, 33- 

2 Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 141, 167. 

3 Wernle, Die Anfange unserer Religion, 239, 2nd ed. 

4 Richard E, Funcke, Die historischen Grundlagen des Christentums, 
244 (Leipzig, 1904). 5 Wrede, Paulus, 15. 

6 Eduard von Hartmann, Das Christentum des N. 7., 171. Where it 
is possible, the hateful representation of Hartmann is surpassed by 
Fried. W. Nietzsche, Morgenrothe, 64-68, 182 (1881). The charge of 
Hartmann and A. Meyer, Wer hat das Christentum begrindet? 32, that 
Paul, after his conversion, did not wish to go even once to Jerusalem to 
let himself be instructed, is contradicted by Ad. Jtilicher with the 
remark : ‘‘ He would have returned at once from Damascus to Jerusalem, 


but he knew that his former companions would quickly dispose of him if 
he surrendered himself to them,”—Paulus und Jesus, 55. 


356 . Christ and the Critics 


cus episode, cannot be “ psychologically ’’ interpreted in the 
above sense unless we come into contradiction with the in- 
controvertible dates and facts of the Acts of the Apostles and 
the Pauline Epistles themselves. According to them, the 
great man by no means reasoned out and elaborated his 
christology merely from his experience at Damascus—whether 
this be regarded as a subjective vision of Paul or as an 
objective appearance of Christ—and with complete disregard 
of the real, historical life of Jesus and the tradition of the 
original Church, in which the historical Jesus continued to 
live. 

Nothing is more untrue than the assumption that the 
historical life of the Saviour was a matter of indifference to 
Paul. True, it is hard to prove to what degree Paul in his 
missionary preaching referred to single events and single 
utterances in the life of Jesus. Certainly a mission to the 
Gentiles could not be carried on without the communication 
of abundant material from the life of Jesus for purposes of 
narration.t_ The Epistles of Paul do not contain much of it, 
for the precise reason that the historical life of Jesus was 
already known to the Churches to which those letters were 
addressed, and, again, because Paul did not wish to furnish 
in them historical details, but to express his views about the 
problems of Christian life. Nevertheless, there is sufficient 
evidence from the Pauline writings that Christ was the chief 
object of Paul’s preaching—in fact, the person and teaching 
of Christ in just that historical conception which Jesus himself 
had given to it.2, Paul declares that he has admonished the 
Church at Ephesus to remember “the words of the Lord”’ 
(Acts xx, 24, 35). ‘“‘ The word of Christ’’ is to be used in 
the Churches abundantly, and to be freshly brought to mind 
in the most varied forms of teaching and spiritual hymnology 
(Col. iii, 16). All instruction is to be joined to the “‘ sound 
words of our Lord Jesus Christ ’’ (1 Tim. vi, 3). In any case, 
Paul is conscious that his Gospel of Christ is identical with 
the Gospel which Jesus himself preached (Rom. xvi, 25). He 
expressly designates all preaching and all faith which do not 
agree with the historical, real truth of the life of Jesus as 
vain imaginings and as false witness against God (1 Cor. 
xv, 12-17). The highest guiding-star of his faith and his 
doctrine is ‘‘ other foundation no man can lay, but that which 
is laid, which is Christ Jesus’”’ (1 Cor. ili, 11)—that is, the 
historical Jesus. 

As evidence for the charge that Paul placed no value on the 
historical Jesus appeal is made® to the confession: ‘‘ Hence- 


1 Proofs in Johannes Weiss’s Das dlteste Evangelium, 33-39 (Géttin- 
gen, 1903). 

2 For the thorough proof of this, see Zahn, Zinlettung in das N.T., 
ii, 164-166 (Leipzig, 1899). 8 Weinel, Paulus, 244. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 357 


forth we know no man according to the flesh. And if we have 
known Christ (the Messiah) according to the flesh, but now we 
know him so no longer ” (2 Cor. v, 16). But these words do 
not at all contain a depreciation between the so-called historic 
Jesus according to the flesh and the spiritual and celestial 
Christ. From the whole Pauline theology, as well as from the 
immediate context of this passage (see 2 Cor. v, 14, 15, 17), 
the antithesis of ‘flesh and spirit ’’ is equivalent to Judaism 
and Christianity—that is, Paul’s former Jewish, and now 
Christian, views of the Messiah. ‘‘ As Paul also elsewhere 
reckons Judaism as a part of the category of the flesh, and 
declares it to be conquered and destroyed by Christianity, as 
the religion of the Spirit, so he passes judgement on the ideas 
of the Messiah, which he formerly had, whether they may 
have been really rather apocalyptic in general, or phari- 
saical in particular.’’t Thus, then, Paul does not express 
himself in the second Epistle to the Corinthians in favour of, 
but in the most decisive way against, the view of liberal 
criticism. He had not himself created his Christ by attribut- 
ing to Jesus inveterate Jewish ideas of the Messiah, but his 
faith in Christ is genuine and early Christian, and rests on 
the real, historical life and work of Jesus himself. Jiilicher 
also gives his opinion as follows: “An Apostle of Jesus 
Christ, who should not have wished to know anything of the 
earthly life of the Messiah, who, for the sake of his dogma, 
should have passed over contemptuously, as ‘weakness of 
the flesh,’ all that had become revealed through the sub- 
missive figure of the Son of God, is a creation of the modern 
habit of twisting conclusions, but not the Paul of history. 
The friendly co-operation of Paul with other Evangelists— 
for example, Barnabas and Mark—who certainly did not 
practise any such wonderful seclusion, excludes the pos- 
sibility that the Gospel history remained essentially unknown 
to, Paul./22 

It can, then, also be actually proved from the Pauline 
writings® that the Apostle to the Gentiles possessed a thorough 
and definite knowledge of the life of Jesus ; that the historical 
person of the Saviour was always before his eyes; and that 
therefore his conviction and faith in regard to the divinity 
rested not only on the revelation of the glorified Jesus, which 
had come to him near Damascus, but also on the conduct of 
Jesus when on earth. 

The assertion that “the Pauline theology was something 
almost wholly separate from the historical life and doctrines of 

1 Feine, Paulus als Theologe, 39. 

2 Jiilicher, Paulus und Jesus, 55. 

3 See proofs in Feine, 45-50; Ruegg, 59; and especially in Titius, 
Die neutest. Lehre von der Seligkett, ii, 12 ff.; Kolbing, Die gezstige 


Einwirkung der Person Jesu auf Paulus, 111 f. (G6ttingen, 1906); 
Johannes Weiss, Das dlteste Evangelium, 33 ff.; Paulus und Jesus, ro ff. 


358 Christ and the Critics 


Jesus,’’! yes, that it was in error about the whole humanity 
of Christ,? stands in direct contradiction to this theology and 
to all the facts of Pauline preaching. Even Johannes Weiss 
pronounces untenable the statement ‘‘ that Paul really had 
relations only with the celestial Christ, and, on the other 
hand, had known practically nothing of the earthly Jesus, who, 
in any case, played no part in his religious consciousness.’’* 

Precisely, H. Weinel,* who has uttered literally this state- 
ment prohibited by Weiss, has finally again to avow that 
Paul has ‘“‘ preserved for us the portrait of Jesus sharp and 
clear. . . . We must not think that Paul knew nothing of 
Jesus. On the contrary, his Epistles contain so much of 
Jesus that he, even in the controversy which has just broken 
out again about the historical truth of the person of Jesus, is 
and remains the best and surest witness, and we must declare 
all his Epistles to be unauthentic if we would put aside his 
testimony. . . . And, however much heis occupied religiously 
with the exalted and living Christ, just as clearly do we find 
everywhere traces of his acquaintance with the narratives 
about Jesus as they were subsequently incorporated firmly in 
our Gospels.’’® 

Moreover, the mere fact that shortly before and after the 
death of St Paul, and in the Churches founded by Paul in his 
missionary tours, the Gospels were written on the basis of the 
life of Jesus, up to that time related and preserved by oral 
teaching, proves exactly the whole absurdity of our opponents’ 
hypothesis, which denies to Paul a knowledge of the history of 
his Master. How? The old Churches, in which Paul had 
preached, and which he had himself for the most part founded, 
possessed such an abundant knowledge of the words, deeds 
and suffering of the Lord that the synoptical Gospels could 
be composed out of it, and Paul, the head and educator of 
these Churches, was without this knowledge? To put the 
question is enough to answer it. This consideration alone 
would necessarily cause the final elimination from Pauline 
research of the liberal legend of Christ as merely an apoca- 
lyptic celestial man. ‘‘ The thesis that the faith of Paul is 
connected by no living bond with the historical personality of 
Jesus will hardly disturb the theology of the future.’’® 

In fact, Paul’s acquaintance with the life of Jesus is so 
significant that sometimes the assertion has been made that 


1 Pfleiderer, Entstehung des Christentums, 18s. 

a Wrede,) Pavias ce. ® Weiss, Christus) 32 foiva 

4 “Tn fact, Jesus hardly played any part for him (Paul) as a human 
being.’’—Weinel, Paulus, 244. 

5 Weinel, /.c., 246, 249. Similarly, Weizsicker, Das apostolische 
Zettalter, 118, 3rd ed. : ‘‘ Paul has doubtless known the Gospel tradition 
about Jesus. . . . That he knows the utterances of Jesus is proved by 
his citations. He uses them for the highest decisions in questions of 
life and faith.” 6 Johannes Weiss, Paulus und Jesus, 72. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 359 


Paul derived it from a Gospel already put into written form. 
That is certainly not the case, and not a single tenable 
argument for such a supposition can be brought forward, 
although the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew surely already 
existed. Also the view that the Logia—the Discourses—were 
already accessible at the time of the Apostle in the Greek 
Churches, and that Paul (as Resch tries to prove) is at every 
step dependent on them, is questionable. Paul himself may, 
however, be looked upon in a certain sense as the first Greek 
Evangelist. Only from twenty to twenty-five years after the 
death of the Master he has described his life in its most 
important outlines. 

The source, however, from which he drew his knowledge 
was not, as our opponents assert, his own religious experi- 
ence—Christ, psychologically learned by Paul—but the tradi- 
tion of the first disciples and the original Church. 

It is not merely an oversight, it is a gross and inexcusable 
error, when Professor Arnold Meyer writes: ‘‘ Paul re- 
jected all human tradition, even that of the first Apostles.’ 
As if the history and the Epistles of Paul did not declare the 
very opposite of this! When Paul wishes to prove the re- 
liability of his historical statements about Jesus, he appeals 
to the Twelve and to the hundreds of witnesses and hearers 
still living in the original Church (1 Cor. xv, 5-7). The 
historical knowledge of the separate facts concerning Jesus— 
events, circumstances, in short, all “the things that are of 
Jesus ’’? (Acts xviii, 25; xxili, 11; xxvili, 31)—Paul received, 
like the Corinthians, through the narrations of others who, 
before him, had become acquainted with them (1 Cor. xv, 1-3). 

Paul knew these bearers of the original tradition about 
Jesus from a most intimate association of many years. First, 
he gained exact information about Jesus during three years’ 
residence in Damascus, from that ancient Church, closely 
connected with the mother Church in Jerusalem (Acts 
ix, 19-25). Then he remained a short time with Peter and 
James and the brethren at Jerusalem (Acts ix, 26-30; Gal. 
i, 18-20). Then he spent six or seven years more in the midst 
of the Church at Antioch, whose foundation the fugitives from 
the mother Church in Jerusalem had laid (Acts xi, 25-30; 
xill, 1-3). On his missionary journeys also he was accom- 
panied by the oldest members of the mother Church and was 
aided in his preaching by Barnabas, Mark and Silas. Finally, 
in order not to err in his Gospel concerning Jesus, he went 
specially a second time to Jerusalem to the first disciples 
(Gal. ii, 1 and following), in regard to whom he himself says: 





1 Meyer, Wer hat das Christentum begriindet, Jesus oder Paulus? 32. 

2 This expression, td zepl Tod’ Inood, according to the linguistic usage 
of Paul and Luke, as well as grammatically, must be understood as the 
personal incidents in Jesus’ life, See Eph. Wii 22 5Coh. dw, 8, ‘etc, 


360 Christ and the Critics 


‘‘T communicated to them the Gospel which I preach among 
the Gentiles ; but apart to them who seemed to be something, 
lest perhaps I should run, or had run in vain’’ (Gal. ii, 2). 

By means of this chain of witnesses Paul stands so posi- 
tively in connection with Jesus, his life and his teaching, that 
he can affirm that he had received his Gospel, as it were, 
from the Saviour himself: “‘ I have received of the Lord, that 
which also I delivered unto you’”’ (1 Cor. xi, 23).* 

What is left, then, of the preposterous assumption that 
Paul has, on his own initiative, or, what is the same thing, 
according to his own subjective “experience,’’ created a 
Christ, who stands in contradiction with the real person and 
history of Jesus and with the most ancient tradition? On 
the contrary, Paul proclaims with the whole force of his 
conviction that he preaches the divine man Jesus Christ 
precisely as the Saviour himself has revealed himself, and as 
the first disciples and the whole original Church preached him 
and believed in him. He knows himself to be in the full 
possession of the true portrait of Christ; he relies on the 
essential identity of his own revelation of Christ with that of 
the older Apostles and with that of Jesus, and even dares to 
excommunicate everyone, though he were an angel from 
heaven, who should preach another Gospel than that given 
by himself and by tradition (Gal. 1, 8, 9). He verifies con- 
tinually his preaching of Christ by that of the first Apostles, 
and lets this go so far as to have the correctness of his teach- 
ing confirmed by the assembly of the Apostles at Jerusalem, 
in order not to err himself or to lead others into error. It is 
abundantly proved from the old Christian sources that no- 
where in the original Church—including the Jewish-Christian 
heterodox teachers, the enemies of Paul—was there heard a 
difference of opinion, or even a tiny discord, in regard to the 
way in which the person of Jesus was pourtrayed. 

And in the face of all that, are we to~suppose that Paul 
has, consciously or unconsciously, replaced the real, historical 
Jesus by a fantastic, subjectively-experienced—that is, an 
imagined—figure of Christ, separated it from all human rela- 
tions, and clothed it with celestial dignity and a divine nature? 
And, furthermore, that he, the novice, completed this swindle 
already in the year of Jesus’ death, and then continuously 
all his life repeated it in word and writing, without con- 
tradiction, but, on the contrary, with the universal approval 
of the first Apostles and the whole early Church, which itself 
must thus have committed this blasphemous deception with 
him, and allowed itself to be converted to the distorted Pauline 
portrait of Jesus? Everyone must see the incorrectness, let 

1 By this is meant—as Th. Zahn proves, Zinlettung, ii, 171—not a 


personal revelation made to Paul—whether that of Damascus, or a later 
one—but the indirect revelation by means of tradition. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 361 


us say, the whole monstrous character of such a critical 
fabrication of history. 

Paul, therefore, in his chnstology is at one with the im- 
mediate Church of the disciples of Jesus.* All the assertions 
that Paulinism grew outside of the latter, on Hellenic soil 
and out of a Greek-mythological sphere of thought, are ex- 
cluded by Adolf Jiilicher in the words: ‘‘ No, the Christianity 
of Paul also has grown on the soil of the original Church at 
Jerusalem, and if Paul did once criticize the person of Peter, 
he never criticized Peter’s Gospel. In every way he declares 
(1 Cor. xv, 11) that there exists no difference between the 
Gospel of Paul and that of the older Apostles; at most there 
can be detected in his words (verse 8) a regret that they had 
come into possession of the complete revelation so much 
sooner than he.’’? 

If anyone wishes to speak of a difference between Paul and 
the older Apostles, it can be only a formal one: “ Paul 
elaborates more sharply what was already there in reality.’’® 
The Apostle to the Gentiles, it is true, pours the same thoughts 
that we find in the old disciples into other forms, and thinks 
them out to a conclusion, as was natural to his lofty mind 
and to the new world in the midst of which he proclaimed his 
Gospel. But he created no new Gospel and no new Christ. 
Even decided enemies of the divinity of Jesus are convinced 
of this. Julius Kaftan writes: “I sum up my judgement 
thus, that through Paul, and precisely through him and no 
one else, the Gospel of Jesus in primitive Christianity was 
preserved, and thus became a power that has changed the 
history of the world.’’* According to Weinel, Paul “has 
always preserved the connection with the first Apostles, and 
even in a difficult hour of his life resisted the temptation 
finally to tear away his Churches from the Jerusalem tradition 
and thereby from (the historic) Jesus.’’® Yes, the Jena critic 
rejects the hypothesis of a Pauline transformation of the 
earthly Jesus into a celestial-divine Christ so forcibly that he 
falls into the opposite extreme, and ascribes to Paul the 
credit for the fact “that the celestial Jesus has not entirely 
concealed the human Jesus.’’® 

Accordingly, just as little as there exists any essential dif- 
ference between the christology of Paul and the original 
Church, just so little is there any such difference between 
Paul and Jesus. Again Weinel is obliged to confess: “In 
the highest and last analysis Paul and Jesus are at one, how- 
ever unlike their formulas may be, and however widely they 
differ in their entire nature.””’ This is a thought which 

1 See the monograph of A. Castellain, St Paul, valeur de son témot- 
gnage sur le Christ, VE glise et la doctrine du Salut (Bruxelles, 1900). 

2 Paulus und Jesus, 56. 3 Feine, Paulus als Theologe, 52. 


4 Jesus und Paulus, 55. 5 Weinel, Paulus, 244. 
6 Weinel, l.c. 7 Weinel, Paulus, 117. 


362 Christ and the Critics 


Adolf Jiilicher puts into the following words: ‘“‘ Even if there 
are not a few differences between both [Jesus and Paul], 
nevertheless, Paul has understood the Master, whom he has 
never seen with his bodily eyes better than the Twelve, 
and he is nevertheless the heir to his true spirit. ... In 
the main thing Paul is at one with Jesus. . . . For even the 
halfway unprejudiced it is hard not to see that Jesus is the 
Creator, and Paul the receiver.’’? 

And yet Jiilicher thinks that, in regard to christology, this 
unity between Paul and Jesus comes to naught: “If we 
gather together, as a whole, the scattered thoughts of Paul 
concerning his Christ, it is evidently impossible to derive them 
from the Gospel of Jesus, or even merely to put them at once 
into friendly relations with him. . . . The Christ-mythology 
of Paul appears like a ruthless violation of the portrait of 
Jesus, so great in its simplicity, which we have gained in the 
Gospels.’’2 Assuredly the Christ-mythology of Paul, as 
Jiilicher and the liberal critics like to represent it, is a ruth- 
less violation of the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels, just as it 
is, as we have seen, a ruthless violation of the Pauline portrait 
of Jesus. 

In opposition to it, the Apostle asserts in regard to his 
statements about Jesus: ‘‘I have received of the Lord that 
which I have delivered unto you’”’ (1 Cor. xi, 23). And even 
Jiilicher sees himself compelled to confess: “ The declaration 
of Paul concerning his relation to Jesus referred of course to 
the simple dependence of the Apostle on the Lord. In his 
consciousness the all-dominating thing was that he might 
preach in the whole world precisely what Jesus Christ wished 
to have preached as his Gospel. . . . And he has not sup- 
planted Jesus even unconsciously.’’? 

Paul, therefore, has neither consciously nor unconsciously 
changed anything in the Gospel or the portrait of Jesus. 
Whoever honestly endeavours to compare the portrait of 
Jesus in the Gospels with Paul’s portrait of him will per- 
ceive the essential unity of both. He will find that the 
Pauline preaching about the Son of God goes back to Jesus’ 
own conception of his divine sonship and divinity, and that 
we possess in Paul a new confirmation of Jesus’ own utter- 
ances concerning his exalted nature. 

Hence the Berlin professor, Theodor Kaftan, is right 
when he says: “ The watchword, which is given out to-day, 
‘Back from Christ to Jesus, and from Paul’s preaching of 
Christ to the simple Son of Man of the Gospels,’ is unaccept- 
able. . . . This watchword is valueless, because it is based 
upon a false premise. The difference between the Christ of 
Paul and the Jesus of the Gospels, on which this watchword 


1 Jiilicher, Dre Religion Jesu und die Anfange des Christentums, 80. 
2 Julicher, Paulus und Jesus, 26, 27. Sta Lea 


The Divinity of Christ after is Death 363 


relies, does not exist in the Scripture itself, but is dragged 
into it. The Jesus, whom this watchword opposes to the 
Christ of Paul, is not the Jesus of the Gospels, but the Jesus 
of a new theology.’’! Similarly Julius Kaftan writes: “If 
anyone to-day wishes violently to separate Jesus and Paul, to 
appeal to Jesus and to repudiate Paul, it is, when seen from 
the standpoint of history, a high-handed proceeding. In 
history they belong together, as the Lord, in whom we 
believe, and the Apostle, to whom we owe the permanent 
forms of this belief. . . . The modern separation of Jesus 
and Paul will prove to be, in the further development of 
theology and the Church, a transient error.’’? In fact, even 
such a liberal investigator as Hermann von Soden already 
designates this error as outlived: ‘‘ The view formerly often 
presented that Paul was in reality the founder of Christianity 
is given up in scientific circles.’ 


IV.—Tue SyNOPTISTS AND THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 


1. The Divinity of Christ as Represented by the Synoptists. 


We can summarize this briefly. The synoptic represen- 
tation agrees with the divine consciousness, which Jesus 
himself reveals in the first three Gospels. This consciousness 
we have thoroughly and exhaustively estimated, beginning 
with the revelation of divine sonship by the twelve-year-old 
boy in the temple to the hour of his ascension into heaven. 
It is true, with these the corresponding texts in John’s 
Gospel were also continually taken into consideration, in 
order to obtain a really organic picture of what Jesus Christ 
said of himself. Yet every reader can easily separate the 
Johannine elements. In this way, to use a somewhat un- 
fortunate and unhappily too frequently employed expression, 
he will have before him the characteristic ‘‘ synoptic Christ,” 
in distinction from the “ Johannine Christ.’ 

Only one thing is still wanting—the Gospel of the Child- 
hood of Jesus. Hitherto this has not been considered, because 
it lies outside of, and previous to, the sphere of the direct 
testimony of Jesus to himself. Consequently it is more a matter 
of merely arranging in logical sequence the divine features in 
the Gospel of the childhood, in order to gain a comprehensive 
idea of the divinely human person of Jesus held by the 
synoptical Evangelists and by their Christian contemporaries. 

While Mark opens his ‘‘ Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God’’ (Mark i, 1), immediately with the appearance of the 


1 Theodor Kaftan, Der Mensch Jesus Christus, 3 (Gr.-Lichterfelde- 
Berlin, 1908). 

2 Jesus und Paulus, 58. Similarly, Scott, Jesus and Paul, in Essays 
on some Biblical Questions by B. Swete, 375 f. (London, 1909). 

3 Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu, 1, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1q09) 


aii Christ and the Critics 


Forerunner, and while the Fourth Gospel, apart from the 
prologue, begins at once with the testimony of the already 
convinced John the Baptist to Christ, Matthew and Luke turn 
their gaze backwards, and pourtray historically the temporal 
beginnings of the life of Jesus by means of the oldest tradi- 
tion. Matthew undertakes this task in order to weaken com- 
pletely the caricature which Jewish and especially phari- 
saic fanaticism had already put into circulation concerning 
the life of the Saviour. Luke feels himself already, aside 
from this consideration, compelled to “ diligently attain to 
all things from the beginning” in accordance with his very 
decided talent as an historian (Luke 1, 3). 

Liberal criticism, it is true, asserts the contrary. It 
affirms that both Luke and Matthew have allowed their 
judgements to be clouded by mythological or legendary stories 
of their contemporaries concerning the true and actual begin- 
nings of the life of Jesus; and that their Gospel of the child- 
hood, therefore, does not at all deserve to be taken seriously 
by historical criticism. That has been the unanimous opinion 
of rationalistic liberalism ever since the days of Gottlob 
Paulus, David Fr. Strauss and Ernest Renan down to H. 
Usener,! Hillmann,? P. Lobstein,? H. Holtzmann,* Harnack,°® 
W. Soltau,* H. Gunkel,’ Otto Pfleiderer,®? Wellhausen,? Ed. 
von Hartmann,’® and T. K. ;Cheyne."* These are) reale 
acrobatic feats, in which these and other more or less serious 
critics outbid themselves in their attempts, first to criticize 
the story of Christ’s childhood out of the canonical Gospels, 
and then to make people believe that it was invented under 
the influence of Hellenic and Oriental mythology and freely 
imaginative Christian legend, and slipped surreptitiously into 
the Gospels by the synoptists, if not by some later irreverent 
hand.!?_ This is not the place in which to deal with this 


1 Religtonsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, 69 ff. (1889); cf. Geburt 
und Kindhett Christt,in N. T. Wissenschaft, iv, 8 (1903). 

2 Die Kindhettsgeschichte Jesu nach Lukas (1891). 

3 Die Lehre von der uibernatiirlichen Geburt Christi (1896). 

4 Lehrbuch der N. T. Theologie, i, 414 (1897). 

5 Zu Luk i, 34, in Zeitschrift fir N. T. Wissenschaft} \g3 (190tym 
Dogmengeschichte, 95, note 2, 3rd ed.; Wesen des Christentums, 20. 

6 Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu Christi (1902). 

7 Zum religtonsgeschichtlichen Verstandnts des N. T., 63-70 (1903). 

8 Das Christusbild des urchristlichen Glaubens, 21 ff. (1903); Entste- 
hung des Christentums 194 ff. (1905). 

9 Das Evangelium Lucae tibersetzt und erklart (1904). 

10 Das Christentum des N, T., 23, 30, §9 (1905). 

11 Bible Problems (1905). 

12 The latter is the recent supposition of J. Wellhausen, since, in his 
commentaries on Matthew and Luke (Berlin, 1904), he frankly gives up 
the story of the childhood, although even Harnack, Sitzungsber. der 
Kénigl. preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaft, 547 ff. (Berlin, 1900), and 
Zimmermann, Theol. Studien, 250 ff. (1903), prove that the first two 
chapters of Luke’s Gospel are from the same hand as all the rest of the 
Gospel. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 365 


hypercriticism. A renewed discussion of it is also not at all 
necessary. The full historicity of the Gospel of the childhood 
of Jesus has been sufficiently demonstrated’ in recent years 
in numerous magazines and monographs by Protestants, as 
well as Catholics, while the liberal critics have not brought 
forth even one tenable argument against it, and maintain 
their own specious reasons only by continual mutual contra- 
diction.” 

The real and only reason why they attack the historical 
genuineness and credibility of the Gospel of the childhood is 
not at all an historical, but a philosophical one—the pre- 
judiced, naturalistic and rationalistic view. According to this 
view, the texts of the Gospel are divided into two classes— 
one natural, the other supernatural. Whatever in the Gospels 
and in the Christ of the Gospels is merely and purely natural 
and human is pronounced genuine and credible. On the con- 
trary, wherever in the Gospel and the life of Jesus super- 
natural, miraculous and divine elements come into considera- 
tion, a later insertion, or a myth, or at least a legend must 
absolutely exist. Only one who, starting from this “ climax 
of arrogant assumptions,’’ brings himself to restamp “the 
oldest monuments of Christian faith . . . as witnesses for 
modern views,’’* can and must violently strangle in par- 
ticular the Gospel of the childhood. 

The Gospel of the childhood lies wholly in the sphere of 
supernatural revelation, and Jesus Christ appears therein 
already as the divine Messiah and Son of God. It is true, 
the human foundation of the portrait of Jesus shows itself 


1 This literature in German, French and English is completely set 
forth in P. A. Durand’s L’Enfance de Jésus-Christ a@aprés les Evan- 
giles canontgues, 65 ff. (Paris, 1908). Only the admirable book by 
Bardenhewer, Maria Verkiindigung, Biblische Studien, vol. X (1905), 
has been overlooked by Durand. Since then have appeared: J. Pfat- 
tisch, Der Stammbaum Christi beim hl. Lukas, Katholtk, 269-276 (1908) ; 
Simon Landersdorfer, Bemerkungen zu Lukas, 1, 26-38, Bztblische 
Zeitschrift, 30-48 (1909); V. Hartl, Zum Stammbaum nach Lukas, 
7@., 150-173, 290-302 (1909); Joseph Michael Heer, Die Stammbdume 
Jesu nach Matthéus und Lukas, td., vol. XV (1910); F. X. Steinmeister, 
Die Geschichte der Geburt und Kindhett Christi und thr Verhdailtnts 
zu babylontschen Mythen, in N. T. Abhandlungen von Metnertz, ii, 
yew 

2 Professor Richard H. Griitzmacher, of Rostock, remarks, in regard 
to this contradictory criticism of the story of the childhood, in Dze 
Jungfrauengeburt, 25 f. (Gr.-Lichterfelde-Berlin, 1906), the following : 
‘* Faith in the ‘ certain results of science ’ breaks down when one sees 
how its ‘ intellectual leaders ’ swear to the most pronounced contradic- 
tions on their scientific oath. Indeed, there is hardly one domain 
which, to such a degree as ours, can shatter even the simplest faith in 
the certainty of scientific results; provided, of course, that one works 
out the whole extremely voluminous literature (about the criticism of the 
Gospel of the childhood) in all its details, and enlarges one’s knowledge 
also of one’s own party limitations.”’ 

3 Bardenhewer, Maria Verkiindigung, 6. 


366 Christ and the Critics 


there sharply and clearly. The child Jesus, according to the 
record of Matthew and Luke, comes into this world as a 
human being and is subject to all human conditions. He is 
conceived and sheltered for nine months in the womb of the 
Virgin Mary. He is born in a poor hut of refuge, laid in 
a manger, circumcised after eight days, and later presented 
in the temple of the Lord, and ransomed with the money of 
humble people. Then he passes through all the phases of 
the usual human child, grows and develops physically, morally 
and spiritually. In regard to this entirely human side of the 
life of the child Jesus, as it is depicted by the synoptists, the 
Apostle Paul can say : Christ Jesus ‘‘ debased himself, taking 
the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and 
in habit found as a man’”’ (Phil. ii, 7). 

Through his humanity, however, his divinity is already 
discernible from the first hour. Not with obvious clearness, 
as in his later life and activity, yet corresponding to the 
beginnings and first steps of the personal revelation of 
God. 

The angel of God brings from heaven the first announce- 
ment to the aged priest, Zachary, that he would receive a 
Son, whom he is to call the Child of grace (Johannes, or 
“Jehovah hath shown grace’’)—a sign of the approaching 
Messianic age of grace. Joy and gladness are to accom- 
pany the birth of John, “for he shall be great before the 
Lord | Kyrios, Jehovah], . . . and he shall convert many of 
the children of Israel to the Lord, their God [Jehovah- 
Elohim], and he shall go before him in the spirit and power 
of Elias . . . to prepare unto the Lord | Jehovah] a perfect 
people” (Luke i, 5-18). 

The Lord God, before whom John will be great, before 
whom he will go in the spirit and power of Elias, to prepare 
for him the way and the people, is undoubtedly the coming 
Messiah, Jesus himself. Isaias (xl, 3) and Malachias (iii, 1) 
had announced that the Messiah would send out a messenger 
and guide before him. The prophet Malachias had especi- 
ally added: “Behold, I will send you Elias the prophet, 
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 
And he [Elias] shall turn the heart of the fathers to the 
children and the heart of the children to their fathers ’’ 
(Mal. iv, 5, 6). Relying on this utterance of the prophet, 
everyone expected that Elias, or a prophet similar to him in 
strength and spirit, would come to prepare the way for the 
Messiah. This view is set forth already in the Book of Jesus 
Sirach (xlviii, 10, 11). From the New Testament it is 
evident that this belief was universal among its Jewish con- 
temporaries (Matt. xi, 14; xvi, 14; xvii, 10; Mark vi, 15; 
viii, 28; Luke ix, 8; John i, 21). The theology of the Rabbis 
held fast to the appearance of the forerunner Elias as to a 


Che Divinity of Christ after bis Death 367 


dogma. This is evident from the Gospels as well as from 
the Mishna’ (Matt. xvii, 10; Mark ix, 11). 

Hence the aged priest Zachary could understand the 
angel’s words only in the sense that his son, John, would be 
the ardently awaited forerunner of the Messiah, and that this 
Messiah was the Lord God in his own person. And in reality 
Zachary did so understand the message of Gabriel. In the 
prophetic song of praise which the happy father uttered after 
the birth of his son by God’s grace, Zachary gives thanks 
from his deeply grateful heart for the dawn of the Messianic 
salvation, and adds, turning to John: ‘‘ And thou, child, 
shalt be called the prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go 
before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give 
knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the remission of 
their sins, through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in 
which the Orient from on high hath visited us, to enlighten 
them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death’’ (Luke 
i, 76-79). Here it is evident that John is not extolled in 
general as a forerunner and preparer of the ways of God, 
but very particularly as a forerunner and preparer of the ways 
of the Messiah. Not to God in general, but to the Messiah 
are therefore applicable divine names and attributes—The 
Most High, the Lord, the Bringer of Salvation, the Bowels 
of the Mercy of God, the Orient from on high, and the 
Light, which lighteth all things. In the mouth of the Jew 
every one of these names and titles was a powerful para- 
phrase of the divine name and nature of the Messiah. 

Neither the Evangelists nor John the Baptist leaves the 
slightest doubt of this. All conceive the vocation of the 
forerunner, as well as the Person of the Messiah Jesus, in 
the sense of the prophet Isaias: ‘‘ The voice of one crying in 
the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight 
in the wilderness the paths of our God. ... Say to the 
cities of Juda—behold your God! Behold the Lord God shall 
come !” (Isa. xl, 3, 9, 10; Matt. ii, 3 and parallels). 

Six months after the announcement of the coming’ fore- 
runner, the approach of the divine Messiah Jesus himself is 
proclaimed by the word of an angel to the Virgin Mary: 
** Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou 
among women . . . thou hast found grace with God. Behold, 
thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a Son, 
and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and 
shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord 
God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and 
he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his 
kingdom there shall be no end. . . . The Holy Ghost shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall 
overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall 


1 Edujoth viii, 7; Baba mezia i, 8; ii, 8; ili, 4-5; Shekalim, ii, 5. 


368 Christ and the Critics 


be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’’ (Luke i, 
28-33). 

The Son of the Virgin Mary will be Jesus, the Bringer of 
Salvation, the redeeming, spiritual Messiah King. That is, 
first of all, the fundamental meaning of the announcement to 
Mary—the Messiahship of Jesus and his Messianic task and 
work. 

To this, however, is immediately joined the further ex- 
planation of the person and nature of the Messiah Jesus. 
Already the utterance that he will be for ever the ruler of 
the kingdom of God to be founded by him points to his 
eternal and therefore divine nature. This knowledge is 
strengthened by the fact that the angel emphasizes his 
supernatural origin, towering far above all earthly and human 
relations. Not from man will Jesus be conceived, but from 
above, from God. The Holy Ghost will come upon the 
Virgin, and influence her with divine power from on high, 
and this influence shall be like an overhanging shadow, 
much as in the Old Testament the cloud hung over the 
tabernacle and the temple of God, while the glory of the 
Lord filled it within (Exod. xl, 34). 

If already the intimate connection of Jesus with divinity 
has been obvious, the angel Gabriel now directly declares 
this supernatural origin, establishes it, and takes for granted 
the divinity of the Saviour. Jesus will be called the Son of 
the Most High and the Son of God because he, without the 
co-operation of a man, is to be conceived and born by means 
of a perfectly unique miracle of divine omnipotence. The 
basis of the divine sonship lies, therefore, not in the bestowal 
of special favour upon Jesus, and in the acceptance of him 
in place of a child, but in the origin and birth of Jesus in 
his being and in his nature. Jesus is not an ethical, or 
theocratic, but a metaphysical Son of God. 

This the angel confirms, soon after, in substance also to 
the future foster-father of Jesus, St Joseph, with the words: 
‘That which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And 
she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name 
Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins’’ (Matt. 
i, 21). Hereto the Evangelist remarks: ‘‘ Now all this was 
done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the 
prophet, saying: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and 
bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, 
which, being interpreted, is God with us’’ (Matt. i, 22, 23). 
In reality, Isaias announces the future Redeemer and Son of 
a Virgin as ‘God with us’”’: “ Behold, a virgin shall con- 
ceive and bear a son; and his name shall be called Em- 
manuel’’ (God with us); and ‘“ Wonderful, Counsellor, God 
the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of 
Peace” (Isa. vii, 14; ix, 6).. To this announcement the angel 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 369 


Gabriel alludes, and Matthew understands his words cor- 
rectly, when he regards them as a fulfilment of that prophecy 
of Emmanuel. The import of the name given by the angel 
is, moreover, identical with that Emmanuel prophesied by 
the prophet and interpreted by the Evangelist.. “ Emmanuel ”’ 
is equivalent to “God with us’’; “Jesus’’ in the older 


Hebraic form is equivalent to “God is Salvation.’’ “ God 
is Salvation ’’ means the Son of the Virgin, in that he “ saves 
his people from their sins.’’ ‘‘ God with us’’ means the Son 


of the Virgin because he, who as a human being has entered 
into our race, is God. 

Soon after the annunciation, Mary rose and went into the 
hill country to the parents of the future John the Baptist. 
“And she entered into the house of Zachary and saluted 
Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard 
the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And 
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she cried out 
with a loud voice and said: Blessed art thou among women 
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to 
me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?... 
And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those 
things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the 
Lord. And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and 
my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour’’ (Luke i, 39-47). 

Elizabeth greets Mary as the mother of her Lord, her 
Kyrios. The still unborn child Jesus is the Kyrios of the 
highly favoured mother of the Baptist. That is so rare and 
extraordinary that evidently this title is not a mere polite 
address. Neither the Greek nor Aramaic linguistic usages 
permit one to address a child, and especially a still unborn 
child, even were it a prince, from motives of earthly rever- 
ence, as Lord, ‘‘ Kyrios.” Mary’s child was, from a secular 
point of view, in any case, but especially for her relative 
Elizabeth, not a being to whom unusual reverence or any 
lordly rank at all was due. The form of address “ Lord”’ 
can, therefore, have, on the lips of Elizabeth and in its 
application to Jesus, only a supermundane and religious sig- 
nification. We know, however, that Lord, ‘‘ Kyrios,” as a 
religious form of address, was, according to Greek and 
Aramaic ideas, always equivalent to Jehovah, God. That it 
is to be so understood, particularly in this passage of the 
Gospel, is plain from the context. Within a few verses the 
expression “ Lord’’ occurs again four times: “ Behold the 
haudnrad orsthes Lordy) . >“ the, mother: of my Lord 
. . . ‘blessed art thou that hast believed those things that 
were spoken to thee by the Lord’’... ‘“‘My soul doth 
magnify the Lord’’ (Luke i, 38, 43, 45, 46). In the first, 
third and fourth passage God is directly understood, and 
there is no doubt that also in the second passage Mary is 


L, 24 


370 Christ and the Critics 


called the Mother of the Lord, because her child is God— 
incarnate God. 

Some months later, an angel proclaims to the shepherds 
the birth of Jesus with the words: “ Fear not; for behold I 
bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the 
people. For, this day is born a Saviour, who is Christ the 
Lord’’ (Luke ii, ro). A little while before, Mary had made 
the Saviour equal to God: ‘‘ My spirit hath rejoiced in God 
my Saviour.’’ Now the child Jesus is called the Saviour, 
therefore God. And still more definitely does the messenger 
from heaven designate him as ‘‘ Christ the Lord ’’—Messiah, 
Jehovah, the divine Messiah. 

Again a short space of time elapses. Then the saintly, 
aged Simeon in the temple takes the child Jesus in his arms 
and similarly praises God: “Now thou dost dismiss thy 
servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace; because 
my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared 
before the face of all peoples, a light to the revelation of the 
Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel’’ (Luke ii, 29-32). 
Jesus, the Salvation, the Saviour of the world, the Light of 
all nations, the glory of the people Israel! We know all 
these attributes. They have not merely Messianic but 
absolutely divinely Messianic significance. They are simply 
titles, in which the pious Israelite transcribed the ineffable 
name of Jehovah, and which Jesus Christ applied to himself, 
in order to bring nearer to his disciples his divinely human 
personality. John the Evangelist uses them again, in order 
to clothe in them the highest mysteries of the christology 
and divinity of Jesus. 

For the present, however, Providence closes the series of 
its revelations concerning the divinity of the child Jesus. It 
wished merely to call the attention of the world to the 
coming of the divine Messiah. And these manifestations 
were to remain limited to a small circle of chosen souls. 
Yes, even these chosen souls beheld the mystery of the 
divinity of Jesus only through a veil, and beheld it not by 
means of their own visual power, but, as is continually 
emphasized by the Evangelists, through the Holy Spirit, 
by a supernatural, miraculous illumination, or by means of 
instruction through heavenly messengers. Now the heavenly 
voices also are silent, and the illuminations of the mind cease. 
The hour of Jesus’ own revelation had also not yet come. 
On the contrary. After all the miracles which surrounded 
his cradle, the divine child must even flee to Egypt from the 
persecutions of men. And after his return his juvenile life 
continued in deepest obscurity in Nazareth. Luke, after all 
his researches, can report of him only this: “ The child grew 
and waxed strong, full of wisdom, and the grace of God was 
in him’’ (Luke i, 40). 

Then suddenly came a ray of divine light. The twelve-year- 


The Divinity of Christ atter is Death 371 


old child of grace discloses in the temple for the first time 
his true, metaphysical divine sonship, as we have previously 
shown. Then another interval of silence up to the age when, 
in accordance with Jewish usage, the rabbinical teachers 
took charge of his public instruction. Then, all at once, ts 
heard the voice of the forerunner: ‘“‘I am the voice of one 
crying in the desert. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make 
straight his paths, as was spoken by Isaias the prophet. 
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill 
shall be brought low . . . and all flesh shall see the salvation 
of God’’ (Matt. ili, 3; Luke iii, 4-6). “ I baptize with water, 
but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know 
not. The same is he that shall come after me, who is pre- 
ferred before me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy 
to loose. . . . He it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost”’ 
(John i, 26 ff. and parallels). As John, the next day saw 
Jesus coming to him, he said: ‘‘ Behold the Lamb of God, 
that taketh away the sins of the world.... He must 
increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above 
[Jesus] is above all. He that is of the earth, of the earth 
he is, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from 
heaven is above all; and what he hath seen and heard, 
that he testifieth. . .. The Father loveth the Son, and he 
hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth in the 
Son hath life everlasting ; but he that believeth not the Son 
shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”’ 
(John i, 29; 30; iil, 39, 31, 35, 36). 

From this testimony of John stream forth whole sheaves 
of divine and christological illuminating rays. Jesus is the 
Lord, prophesied by Isaias, “ God with us,’’ the mighty God: 
‘* Prepare the way of the Lord, as Isaias hath said.” Jesus 
is the salvation of God, and “ God is salvation’’ for all 
humanity. ‘All flesh shall see the salvation of God’’ cried 
John at the approach of Jesus. It is Jesus, who can, as he 
wills, dispense the Spirit of God, and hence disposes of 
divine power and force: “ He will baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost.’’ It is Jesus who can forgive sins and destroy the 
sins of the world: ‘‘ Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh 
away the sins of the world.’’ Jesus, externally a man like 
other men, nevertheless in his higher nature comes from 
above, from heaven, and is in consequence elevated above 
everything earthly: “He that cometh from above, from 
heaven, is above all.’” Jesus, as a man younger than John, 
is, in regard to this heavenly origin, older than his fore- 
runner—a pre-existing being: ‘‘ He that cometh after me, 
is preferred before me.” Finally, Jesus is the well beloved 
Son of the heavenly Father, and, as such, is the object of 
faith, as is the Father himself: ‘‘ The Father loveth the Son 
and hath given all things into his hands. He that believeth 
in the Son hath life everlasting.”’ 


372 Christ and the Critics 


Moreover, John proclaims Jesus’ divine sonship, not from 
his own impulse and personal knowledge, but by the inward 
illumination of the Holy Ghost, and supported by the divine 
manifestation which occurred at the baptism of Jesus, of 
which the forerunner was the actual witness. When Jesus 
came out of the water after the baptism, ‘‘ Lo, the heavens 
were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending 
as a dove, and coming upon him. And, behold, a voice from 
heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased’’ (Matt. iii, 16 and parallels.) 

These words form, from this time on, as it were, the sign- 
manual of the whole synoptical consciousness of Jesus. Jesus 
proclaims himself to be the Son of God in an increasing 
revelation of himself to the Apostles, the disciples, the 
Galilean people, the people of Judea and the Scribes and 
Pharisees in Jerusalem; he corroborates this conviction of 
his entire life and teaching in the face of death with a sacred 
oath, and confirms it after the resurrection, until his ascen- 
sion and return to the Father. And always and everywhere 
he declares that he applies to himself the title “ Son of God ”’ 
in the strictest sense of these words. He does not claim 
to be a mere child of God through grace, or a mere theo- 
cratic Son of God, but a true, metaphysical Son, of the same 
nature and substance with the Father. We have been able 
to ascertain this consciousness of divinity and of divine 
sonship everywhere, and to observe its development step by 
step. And, indeed, its essential characteristics are stamped 
not only on John’s portraiture of Jesus, but on that of the 
synoptists as well. We do not need to prove this fact a 
second time. It is so clear and certain that not only con- 
servative critics, but also the most important opponents of 
the divinity of Jesus in the liberal camp concede to-day that 
the synoptic Christ is the true Son of God and really God. 

The hypercritical Professor W. Wrede proves that this is 
already the case in Mark, and Mark is regarded by Wrede, 
as well as by the liberal critics almost unanimously, as the 
oldest Gospel. If Jesus is attested from the time of his 
baptism, his temptation, and the confession of Peter down 
to the scene of the tribunal, as the “‘Son of God,’’ this 
cannot be, in Wrede’s opinion, ‘“ merely a theocratic name, 
and just as little an expression for the love of God for Jesus 
or for his human piety, but is the adequate designation of 
the supernatural being of Jesus, . .. supernaturally and 
metaphysically meant.’’? 

1 John i, 32-34. Because the utterance of the Baptist concerning the 
divine sonship of Jesus in John iii, 30, 35, goes back to this divine 
manifestation recorded by the synoptists, it is also based on the writings 
of the synoptists and may, therefore, be used here. 


2 Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, 73, 75, 76 (Gét- 
tingen, Igor). 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 373 


It is true, Wrede tries to represent the texts of Mark, 
which speak in favour of the divinity of Jesus, as unhistorical 
opinions of the Evangelist. Johannes Weiss,! however, char- 
acterizes such an attempt as “ morbid scepticism,’’ and for 
his part expresses his conviction as follows: “ Faith in the 
Son of God is the necessary preliminary for the understand- 
ing of the Gospel of the Cross’’ (Mark). Not first in John, 
but already in the critically incontestable Gospel of Mark, 
“the divine sonship is something supermundane, which can 
only be known, if one has, like the Christian Church, a faith 
which forces its way through the appearance of lowliness to 
its inner being.’’? 

Wilhelm Bousset similarly says of Mark’s Gospel: “ This 
oldest of the Gospels is already written from the standpoint 
of faith (in the divinity of Jesus); for Mark, Jesus is already 
not only the Messiah of the Jewish people, but the miraculous, 
eternal Son of God, whose glory has illumined this world. 
And it has been rightly remarked that in this respect our 
three Gospels are different from the fourth only in degree.’’? 

This view can also be read between and in the lines of 
Adolf Harnack’s writings, however unwilling the Berlin 
scholar is to confess such an ‘‘ essential retrogression ” in 
our research into Christ. ‘“ Already,’’ writes Harnack, “ the 
Jerusalemite Mark has made of Jesus almost a divine appari- 
tion, or has found such a conception already existing,’’ of 
course because “‘he and the authorities he cites have pre- 
viously modified the tradition of Jesus according to the ex- 
periences of the Christian Church.’’* Even Adolf Jilicher 
rejects “the harshness of this view’’ of Harnack, and feels 
that ‘‘a divine apparition is an especially unfortunate ex- 
pression for the play of colours about the head of Jesus, part 
heavenly, part human, which begins to manifest itself in 
Mark.’’> In an unguarded moment, also, Harnack comes 
boldly out from his game of hide and seek, and declares that 
Mark agrees with John “in the dominating intention of 
revealing the divine sonship of Jesus.’’® Of the third Gospel, 
however, he says: “ Luke writes without any tendency, or, 
rather, he has only one tendency—to prove Jesus to be the 
divine Saviour. ... In christology Luke approaches the 
kind of conception which we find in John.’’? 

If, nevertheless, the liberal investigators even to-day still 
frequently preach an ‘‘ evangelical” Christ, that is not God, 
the extremely radical pastor, Kalthoff, rightly ridicules this 
yes-and-no kind of theology. Catholicism and orthodoxy, 

1 Das dlteste Evangelium, 51 (Gottingen, 1903). eR rs 

3 Bousset, Was wissen wir von Jesus? 30 (Halle, 1904). 

# Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, 86 note. 

5 Jiilicher, Mewe Linien in der Krititk der evangelischen Uberlie. 
ferung, 70 (Giessen, 1906). 

6 Lukas der Arst, 119 note. 7 Id., 117, 158. 


374 Christ and the Critics 


then, would have understood Christ, from the first, more 
correctly than liberalism. They have, at all events, the 
Gospels on their side; and, indeed, not only John, but the 
synoptists as well, who represent Jesus as God and God 
incarnate. Only by an act of violence does liberal theology 
seek to render this state of affairs in the Gospels obscure.! 

The radical, W. von Schnehen, pronounces a_ similar 
opinion: “The Jesus of whom these writings [of the Evan- 
gelists] tell us is throughout not a man, but at least a super- 
man. Yes, more than that; he is the unique Son of God, 
the Christ, the coming incarnate God of the orthodox Church. 
In regard to the fourth Gospel, this is, indeed, universally 
recognized. ... But the other Evangelists also have no 
idea of informing us merely of a ‘man’ Jesus and of demand- 
ing faith and reverence for such a being. No, the miracu- 
lously born Son of the Virgin, pourtrayed in the Gospels of 
Luke and Matthew, the Jesus who has risen from the dead 
and ascended into heaven, as depicted in the first and third 
Gospels, is just as little a mere ‘natural man’ as is the Christ 
of John.’’? 

Honest criticism, however radically it may proceed, must 
therefore agree with this result, that the synoptists believe 
in the divinity of Christ, and understand the historical person 
of Jesus as a divinely human Person—Jesus. Mark, who, in 
the opinion of our opponents, sketched the oldest and histori- 
cally the most correct portrait of Jesus, expresses only the 
principal import of his Gospel and, indeed, of the Gospels as 
a whole, when he introduces the history of the Master with 
the words: ‘‘ The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God’’ (Mark i, 1). And there can be no doubt that 
Mark, like Matthew and Luke, conceives the Son of God 
always and everywhere as ‘“‘the one born of God,’’? and that 
they derive this conception from the revelation of Jesus him- 
self, and consider their representation as an absolute proof 
of the divine consciousness of Jesus. 

This opinion of the synoptists concerning Jesus and con- 
cerning their own portraiture of the life of Jesus gives us at 
once the absolute guarantee that we have correctly estimated 
the utterances reported by them of the consciousness of our 
Saviour, as the consciousness that he was God. 

Against all this one can object only that this fact does not 
appear with sufficient evidence from the synoptic revelation 
of Jesus Christ concerning himself; that the divinity of Jesus 
does not lie plainly enough on the surface of the synoptic 
Gospels; that not a single time in them does Christ call him- 

1 Albrecht Kalthoff, Das Christusproblem, chaps. ii-iv, 2nd ed. (1903); 
Die Entstehung des Chrisientums, chap. i (Jena, 1904). 

2 W. v. Schnehen, Der moderne Jesuskultus, 10 f., 2nd ed, (Frank- 


furt a. M., 1906). 
8 Gustav Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 236 (Leipzig, 1898). 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 375 


self God; and that, in fact, the synoptists themselves do not 
give him this title positively. They let the divinity of the 
Saviour be inferred rather from the words and works of 
Christ and from his whole physiognomy, than express it 
themselves unequivocally. And with all the divine sublimity 
of the synoptic figure of Christ, the human side of the Saviour’s 
portrait, nevertheless, is much more prominent and clear than 
his divinity. 

But this proves nothing against the fact that the synoptists 
were convinced of the divinity of Jesus, and that they read 
this out of the life of Jesus, but confirms, indeed, the fact 
anew that the synoptic life of Jesus is truth, reality and history, 
and not an embellishment on the part of the Church. 

For the whole range of the synoptic Gospels this has been 
already demonstrated thoroughly and in detail, in reply to 
the modern evolutionary hypothesis of the liberal school. 
It has also been shown in another chapter of this book, with 
what infinite wisdom and prudence for the attainment of his 
purpose Jesus acted, by making prominent, first of all, in 
his revelation of himself, the human basis of his life and 
person, and then only little by little building up the mighty 
figure of his divinity. There is now still to be added here 
only the proof that the personal conception and representa- 
tion of the divine and human portrait of Jesus by the 
synoptists maintains itself on the same level of historical 
reality. 


2. The Synoptic and the Real Portrait of Christ. 


The assertion of liberal critics that our Gospels and their 
views of Christ are to be considered merely as a reflection 
of the Church’s Christ-legend, as it was forced upon them 
by the contemporaries of the Evangelists, runs counter to the 
incontrovertible observation that the synoptists nowhere refer 
back to the life of Jesus the views which they personally, and 
which all the Christian Churches of their time, then had of 
Jesus. When the synoptists wrote their Gospels, faith in the 
divinity of Jesus was an undoubted common possession of 
all true Christians, as it most certainly had been ever since 
the resurrection of Jesus. That is the one great fact which 
was established by our exposition of the divinity of Jesus 
after the resurrection, the divinity of Jesus in the original 
Church, and the divinity of Jesus as preached by Paul, which 
also results from a study of the synoptic Gospels. 

Accordingly, the idea might actually suggest itself that the 
Evangelists had chosen this, their final point of view, as their 
starting-point. They could easily have been tempted to 
fashion their story of the life of Jesus in such a way as to 
make it appear that the Apostles and disciples had, from the 
very beginning of their calling and acquaintance with the 


376 Christ and the Critics 


Master, believed in his Messiahship and divinity. Or, since 
this would be equivalent to an obviously incorrect and dis- 
honest act, they could, nevertheless, have given to their 
representation an appearance, as if Heaven and the Saviour 
himself, from the beginning of his life to its close, had 
announced to all the world the Messianic and divinely human 
nature of Jesus with explicit, formal definiteness. Or, again, 
because such a portrait of Jesus was far removed from 
historical truth and the actual facts, they could and might 
have, nevertheless, finally followed the tendency—wherever 
the divinity of Jesus in reality reveals itself in the historical 
course of his life—to emphasize such traits strongly, and to 
seek out and pourtray these by preference. 

If the synoptic figure of Christ, as the liberal investigators 
so confidently assert, was a pious attempt to embellish the 
historical portrait of Jesus, then not only the last alternative, 
but really all three of the above-mentioned alternatives, must 
be able to be proved in the synoptic Gospels. 

The contrary is the case. Instead of pourtraying the later 
faith of the Apostles and disciples as existing previously, 
or, at the very beginning, we go with them through the 
whole unteachable apprenticeship of the original Apostles 
until they, under our very eyes, in a long, wearisome ascent 
and after many lapses, finally force their way out of the 
spell of rabbinical Judaism, to the recognition and confession 
of the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus. Instead of forcing 
the ways of Providence and consequently falling into the 
mistake of supposing that the sublime mystery of the person 
of Jesus had come suddenly, all at once, to a still unprepared 
humanity, and had blinded them by its splendour, the morn- 
ing of the day of redemption, according to the synoptic 
representation, first dawned faintly, and that there then broke 
forth, modestly and prudently and with divine circumspection, 
one ray of everlasting light after another, until at Easter the 
brilliant sun of God’s truth shed its radiance over all lands, 
and on Ascension Day stood high above the heavens. And 
instead also of bringing out and marking especially only the 
actual revelations and testimony of Jesus in regard to himself 
and his divinity, these find their support so naturally, so 
harmoniously and in such unaffected simplicity from the 
natural and supernatural course of Jesus’ life, that we are 
almost as much astonished at the human fidelity and simple 
truthfulness of the representation, as at the divine events. 
This sincere character of the synoptic writings forms the 
sharpest imaginable refutation and repudiation of the modern 
liberal criticism of the Gospels, as well as the most posi- 
tive and incontestable defence of the synoptic portrait of 
Christ. 

This is shown most clearly from those very facts brought 


Che Divinity of Christ after this Death 377 


forward by our opponents and exploited unjustly by them 
against the divinity of Jesus—namely, that the man Jesus 
stands so plainly in the foreground of the synoptic Gospels, 
and that Jesus is never called directly God by the synoptists. 

We know that among the Jews the real name of God “is 
uttered more rarely in the time subsequent to the exile, and 
finally is no more uttered at all,’’! unless in the cult of the 
temple and in quotations from the Scriptures, in which the 
name Jehovah occurred. But also in these ‘“ Adonai’’ was 
spoken, instead of “ Jehovah,’’ by an altered pronunciation. 
As substitutes for the name of God, “ general expressions, 
such as the Holy One, the Almighty, the Exalted, the Great, 
the Lord of Heaven, the Lord of lords, King of kings, 
Glory, Great Majesty, were used, but also the mere word 
‘Heaven.’* Indeed, still more prudent and sometimes quite 
colourless expressions were employed, such as the Voice, the 
Height, the Place.’’® : 

Now, just as little as Jesus entirely forbade (Matt. xxiii, 2) 
other Jewish religious usages, provided they had something 
inherently good in them, just so little did he leave disregarded 
the aforesaid custom of speaking prudently of God. It is 
true, “superstitious ideas and such as were foreign to the 
true revealed religion, in regard to the nature of the divine 
name, may have been conducive to the introduction of this 
custom. Because it was thought that the name of God, if 
uttered, might draw down into this world the divine Person 
magically connected with it, men had scruples about speaking 
it. But the decisive reason was, after all, the commandment 
of the Decalogue (Exod. xx, 7): ‘Thou shalt not take the 
name of the Lord thy God in vain,’ and behind this lay a 
genuinely religious awe of the Judge of the world, enthroned 
in heaven. This awe Jesus has not wished to abrogate, 
according to Matt. x, 28 and Luke xii, 5, but has himself 
intensified it.’’* In general, Jesus has broadly accommodated 
himself to this habit of speaking of God more frequently in 
indirect expressions, rather than always using the name of 
God itself,° ‘‘ yet has done so in such a way, that he thereby 
reserved for himself a position peculiarly his own through his 
preferred use of the designation of God as Father.”’® 

After all this, one easily comprehends that, and why, he 
did not apply to himself the name of God. He would, by so 
doing, have given great offence to both the people and the 
rabbis, quite apart from the fact that he would also have been 
completely misunderstood. If he had called himself directly 
God, his Jewish contemporaries would have understood it in 


1 Hollmann, Welche Religion hatten die Juden, als Jesus auftrat? 26, 
2 id., 26 f.; also Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, 159-167. 

3 Dalman, op. cit., 167-191. 4 id,, 190. 5 id., 150-167, 
@ $d., 190. 


Christ and the Critics 


the sense that he claimed to be God and to identify himself 
with the Father in heaven. But it was quite unmistakable, 
when he, on the one hand, held exceedingly high the acknow- 
ledgement of the Father in heaven, but, on the other hand, 
also professed to be himself the Lord, the Almighty, the Truth, 
Salvation, the Judge of the world, and so forth. These were 
expressions in which precisely the Jew spoke of God, and 
from which he could undoubtedly conclude that Jesus wished 
to proclaim himself God. 

When the synoptists wrote, no more consideration of the 
Jewish forms of expression respecting the name of God was 
any longer commanded. The Church had already almost ex- 
clusively devoted its attention to the Hellenistic Jews and to 
the Gentiles. Moreover, the Hellenistic synoptists felt them- 
selves on this point just as little Jewish as on other points, 
and their Greek readers did not even know that linguistic 
usage of the Jewish rabbis. Already then was given also to 
the Saviour, in whose divinity the Christians from the first 
believed, the express title ‘‘ God,” although the appeilations 


most in use were always ‘‘ Redeemer,” “‘ Lord,” and ‘‘ Son of 
God.” Remember only Paul and the Pauline christological 
terminology. 


If the synoptists, nevertheless, throughout and without ex- 
ception avoid the name and designation of Jesus as “ God,’’ 
it is a manifest indication of the originality and historical 
truth of their portraiture of Christ. 

This becomes still more evident in regard to the synoptic 
representation of the humanity of Jesus. 

It is really very remarkable how strongly the human side 
of the life of Jesus is emphasized by the Evangelists. At 
the time when the synoptists wrote, Jesus Christ stood 
before the eye of faith as the first-born of the creation, as the 
ideal man, the divine man, the divine Messiah and the Lord 
of the world. He had proceeded from the bosom of the 
heavenly Father, had come to this earth only to redeem 
mankind, and had ascended again to the Father, in order to 
participate in his divine glory, to reign with him, and at 
some time to return with the whole heavenly host to judge 
the world. Liberal critics even maintain that the Christi- 
anity of that time, entirely abandoning the previous life of 
Jesus, now concerned itself only with the ‘‘ Pauline christ- 
ology of the exaltation.”’ 

If, therefore, the synoptic Gospels had been merely an echo 
of the theological speculation, or a result of the imagination 
of the Christians of that time, they would have had to pourtray 
the life and person of Jesus above all from that supernatural 
and superhuman point of view. The purely human and earthly 
element would have had to retire wholly, or for the most part, 
into the background. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 379 


But the synoptists bring the child Jesus into the world as 
a poor, wailing infant, in spite of his supernatural conception 
and heavenly origin. And in spite of all the supermundane 
manifestations and proofs of his Messiahship and divinity, 
by which the history of the childhood and youth of Jesus is 
glorified, they everywhere indicate the genuinely human 
development of the boy Jesus. The Evangelists, who allow 
us to behold, as through a veil, the divine countenance of the 
boy Jesus, find it important and necessary to relate to us how 
the Son of God at Bethlehem did not find even a sheiter 
worthy of human beings, how he had to flee to Egypt from 
his persecutors, and how he grew up under the simplest 
conditions at Nazareth in the carpenter’s family, and went 
through a purely human process of development in all 
respects. Indeed, they several times express themselves in 
regard to this youthful period in such a way that we may 
suppose that Jesus carefully preserved the mystery of his 
divine inner life from his associates, and even from his foster- 
father and Virgin mother. And in his later life also he 
revealed it only so far as it corresponded to the plan of 
Providence to disclose little by little the mystery of his 
divinity. Yet the divine revelation of himself always runs 
along the thread of the naturally human destiny of Jesus, 
and, before it reaches its climax, it appears for a moment 
as if his divinity would be swallowed up in the nameless 
human misery, which overwhelmed the Saviour, until he had 
fully and completely paid to death the tribute of his human 
nature. 

We have elsewhere furnished proof that the humanity and 
human traits in the life of Jesus form no argument against 
his divinity. It is true, however, that this synoptic repre- 
sentation is a destructive criticism of our opponent’s asser- 
tion that the synoptists do not present the history of Jesus 
according to its actual course, but that it is the Christ-legend 
of the second and third generation of the Church which they 
pourtray. 

This assertion—only the old man’s staff of senile liberalism 
—is so frail and rotten that truly candid liberal critics begin 
to throw it away. “ The traditions of Jesus, which are found 
in Mark and Luke, are older than is usually supposed,’’ con- 
fesses Harnack.! ‘The whole impression of the person of 
Jesus,’’ Weinel asserts, ‘‘as we gain it from the first three 
Gospels, has already stood vividly before the soul of the 
Apostle Paul, and determined his course of action.’’? And 
Pfleiderer confesses: “‘ The three oldest Gospels, which, it is 
true, have been composed in an age subsequent to Paul, and 
partly under the influence of Pauline ideas, have for their 


1 Lukas der Arzt, 113. 
2 Weinel, Paulus, Der Mensch und sein Werk, 249 (Ttibingen, 1904), 


386 Christ and the Critics 


foundation the tradition of the original Church, concerning 
Jesus’ life and teachings.” 

Still more decidedly does Johannes Weiss reject the view 
that the post-Pauline Church, by reason of a disregard of the 
real life of Jesus, has dreamed of nothing but an exalted, 
glorified Christ, and that this way of considering him has 
dominated the synoptists also. He says: ‘‘ The early Churches 
have, together with the formation of a theological doctrine 
concerning Christ, attached also the highest value to the 
keeping alive of the clear portrait of Jesus among them. . . . 
Even if the early Churches did direct their thoughts to the 
Exalted One, they had before their eyes a clear picture of 
him to whom they prayed. For either they belonged to those 
who had themselves seen Jesus, or they were under the im- 
pression of the tradition of his deeds and words. On the 
whole, the portrait, for which we are indebted to the love 
and fidelity of the oldest disciples, is a convincing and a truly 
human one. That the assemblies of these first Christians, 
their conversations and their quiet hours of solitude were 
filled with memories of the Master, and that they admonished 
one another with his words, encouraged one another by his 
example, and yearned for his love, we may take for granted, 
even though we have no direct testimony to that effect. For 
if they had not lived so loyally in the past, they would not 
have transmitted to us the precious collection of the words 
and narratives of the Lord so richly and admirably... . 
The post-pauline literature falls back more and more on 
reminiscences in the life of Jesus. ... We have thereby 
come to the period when it proved necessary to give to the 
Church also a consistent portrait of the life of Jesus. The 
first Apostles and eye-witnesses had died, and it was essential 
to direct the flowing stream of oral tradition into a well- 
regulated bed. Thus originated the first Gospels.’’? 

Adolf Jilicher summarizes the same conviction in the 
following words: “The whole tradition of the synoptists 
goes back, after all, to the ‘Early Church,’ and belongs in 
this sense to the time of Jesus. The Jesus whom the 
Church of Jerusalem had known is reproduced, even though 
with unequal degrees of clearness, in the first three Gospels.’’8 

Hence the synoptic portrait of Jesus is only the replica 
of the real, historical, original life of Jesus, although, or 
rather precisely because, the synoptic Gospels are based 
upon the common Christian teaching, mirror the common 
Christian faith, and (especially Matthew’s Gospel*) were 
themselves also books of the Church. Thereby falls to the 


1 Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 185 f. (190s). 
2 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 69, 73 (Tiibingen, 1900). 

3 Jiilicher, Paulus und Jesus, 13 (Ttibingen, 1907). 

& Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, 120; Die A posteigeschichte, 2 note, 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 38: 


ground not only the assertion that the faith of the synoptists 
in the divinity of Jesus does not go back to the early Church 
and to Jesus Christ himself, but it is also clear that the 
Christian tradition of later generations held firmly to the 
strictly historical life of Jesus; that, faith in the Saviour 
went hand in hand with the history of the Saviour; and that 
the contrast between the real Saviour and the alleged 
Saviour embellished by believers did not exist in the old 
Christian Church, but shows its ghostly form only in the 
imagination of modern critics. ; 


V.—TuHeE DIvINity oF CHRIST AS REPRESENTED BY JOHN. 


1. The Characteristic Form of the Johannine Christology. 


The Johannine christology differs from that of the synop- 
tists by its own special kind of representation and by an 
entirely new form of expression. 

The manner and representation of the synoptic christology 
is more practical than expository, more indirect than direct, 
more mediate than immediate, more insinuating than out- 
spoken. The synoptists relate the life of Jesus simply, 
without specially bringing out in doing so those features in 
which the divinity of Jesus in particular revealed itself 
characteristically, and without expressly emphasizing the 
fact that, and how far, Jesus proclaims himself in his words 
and deeds as the real Son of God. The first Evangelists 
did not feel themselves at all called upon to speak of the 
divinity of Jesus in an explicit, demonstrative manner of pour- 
trayal. On the one hand, this doctrine appeared clearly 
enough from the simple Gospel of deeds and events; on the 
other hand (and this was the main thing), at that time within 
the Christian Church no one assailed the specific, funda- 
mental dogmas of Christianity—the Messiahship and divinity 
of Jesus Christ. These truths were part of the undoubted 
possession of all the Jewish and Gentile Christian Churches 
and of all believers. We have been able to convince our- 
selves of this, particularly from the Epistles of St Paul. 

Some decades later, things were otherwise. After the 
first enthusiasm was over, a reaction was visible among 
some adherents of the Christian religion, and sometimes 
even a partial return to the former Jewish and Gentile 
ideas, from which they had only just escaped. The Gentile- 
Christian elements in the Church, as is easily understood, 
were not entirely free from the formerly cherished religious 
views of the Greek popular philosophy. The Jewish Chris- 
tians were drawn back to the national theology of the 
Synagogue, and above all to the rabbinical and apocalyptic 
views of the Messiah, which previously had held back the 
majority of their race from faith in Jesus, and which now 


382 Christ and the Critics 


drove even those who had become believers with irresistible 
power back again into the depths of racial, national-Jewish 
christology. After God’s judgement on Jerusalem had come 
to pass and the visible nucleus of the indigenous nation had 
vanished, the Judaists held so much the more tenaciously to 
the ideal centre, to the nationally coloured portrait of the 
Messiah, while the Hellenic Christians frequently combined 
Jewish and Greco-Alexandrian elements with their Chris- 
tianity. In this way the Jewish-Gnostic sects originated, 
which either questioned or bluntly denied the true divinity of 
Jesus, as well as his true humanity. 

To meet these false doctrines of Cerinthus, of the Nico- 
laitans and other heretics, John saw himself compelled to lay 
express emphasis on the divinity and humanity of Jesus. 
Against them, according to the unanimous testimony of 
tradition, he wrote his Gospel.1 It is true, he did this 
primarily neither for the purpose of proving the divinity of 
Jesus, nor in order to convert the heretics, but to strengthen 
the Christian sentiments of his Churches in Asia Minor, 
which possessed faith in Jesus Christ, by bringing as an 
authentic witness the divinely human life and the divinely 
human authentication of himself by Jesus vitally and forcibly 
before their eyes. 

John expresses himself very plainly in regard to this pur- 
pose of his Gospel, and tells his readers that this is ‘‘ written, 
that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God, and that believing, you may have life in his name” 
(John xx, 31). 

In accordance with this purpose, the Evangelist unfolds 
immediately and in striking sentences in the preface to his 
Gospel, the entire programme of the Christian doctrine of 
the God-Man—his eternity, his divine qualities, his divine 
sonship, divinity and incarnation. Then he shows how this 
programme was developed throughout the entire life of Jesus. 
John the Baptist is a witness of it at the start, who pro- 
claims the pre-existence of Jesus and his eternal being with 
God before all time (John i, 15, 27, 30), his celestial origin 
(John iii, 31, 32), his divine sonship (John i, 34) and his 
divine and Messianic work of redemption (John i, 29). And 
Jesus commends the Baptist for this christology and affirms 
that John “‘ gave testimony to the truth” (John v, 33-36). 

Beginning from this point, Jesus himself preaches con- 
tinually the truth of his divine sonship in ever-loftier terms, 
and with ever-increasing emphasis. His mission from 
heaven and from God forms the ever-recurring subject of 
his conversation with his disciples and his public discourses 
Me the people (John v, 38, 43; vi, 38; vil, 16, 29; viii, 42; 

SS AGQGARIY ; SEA \a After he has granted to his hearers such 


i-Tren,, Adv. Heres., Lil, xi, 13 (Epiph:, Her., LI, ii, 12) Hieeeue 
De virts illustr., 9. 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 383 


a glimpse into his wholly supernatural nature, he explains 
to them his relation to God at length and under all aspects ; 
he had a personal existence with God before he came into 
this world (viii, 58); he will return again to God as soon as 
he has finished his earthly work—the redemption of humanity 
(viii, 42; xvi, 28); he is the Son of God (iii, 16); and, indeed, 

the only -begotten, formed out of the substance of God and 
consequently a Son of like nature with the Father (i, 14, 18; 

ili, 16,18); he 1s.God, ‘ike the Father: (v, 13%: x, 30-36; xx, 
28). In the unity of the being and nature of Father and Son 
are grounded the divine origin and character of the teaching 
of Jesus; what he himself, resting in the bosom of his Father, 
has heard and seen, that he speaks of and announces to the 
world (iii, 11; vili, 26; xv, 15). Out of the same unity of 
being and nature of Father and Son proceeds also the unity 
of their activity (x, 30, 38; xiv, 9; xvii, -21); the Son doth 
nothing which the Father does not do, as he, on the other 
hand, doth all the works of his Father (v, 109). 

These works give to the utterances of Jesus about his 
divinity, first, decisive and infallible support. The Saviour 
himself appeals to his miracles as a reason for believing on 
him (John x, 25; xiv, 12. ‘‘ These were signs of his high 
mission (ii, 23; ili, 2); they show in Jesus, who performs them, 
a higher, superhuman and divine power, point to his filial 
relation to the Father (v, 36; x, 38); and symbolize invisible 
precedents and truths. Thus the miraculous multiplication 
of the loaves was a symbol of the might and power of Jesus, 
in common with that of the Father, of imparting true life 
and nourishment of soul (vi, 26); the healing of the man 
born blind was a symbol that Jesus was the Light of the 
World (ix, 1, etc.), as God is, and brings to mankind spiritual 
illumination. The healing on the Sabbath day of the man 
who had been ill for thirty-eight years is not only a sign of 
his miraculous power, but symbolizes at the same time the 
truth that his activity is the expression of his perfectly 
harmonious work with that of the Father, and that this 
work consequently proves his right to sonship’’ (v, 17).* 

In witness of the testimony which Jesus gives to his 
divinity in word and work John brings forth his own 
experience and that of his fellow-apostles and believers. 
Only through the oral and practical training of Jesus were 
the Apostles and disciples brought little by little to faith in 
the divinity of the Master, overpowered by the evidence of 
the grounds for faith which were furnished them. Still 
living near the Evangelist in Asia Minor were a number of 
the disciples of Jesus who had been witnesses of his preach- 
ing of his divinity, and of the proofs of divine power exer- 
cised to support the claim, and who confirmed the fact that 
the christology of John was a reproduction of the teaching 


1 Johannes Belser, Zinlettung in das N. T., 322 (Freiburg, 1901). 


384 Cbrist and the Critics 


of Christ (xxi, 24). Above all, however, John can appeal to 
himself that, as an eye-witness, he gives his report con- 
cerning Jesus, his life, his humanity, his Messiahship and 
his divinity conformably to truth and reality. ‘‘ And he that 
saw it hath given testimony,” he says, ‘‘ and his testimony 
is true. And he knoweth that he saith true, that you also 
may believe . . . that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, 
and that believing, you may have life in his name” (John 
Migs a Guana a1), 

Thus the Gospel of John, in its commencement, in its 
centre and in its ending, is a forcible and well-grounded con- 
fession of the true divinity of Jesus. The first lines of this 
wonderful book express the divine christology in sentences 
worthy to be chiselled in stone. The same doctrine rings 
as a basic tone throughout the entire work, and in the final 
chord dies tremblingly away, to the effect that here on earth 
faith in Jesus, as the Messiah and Son of God, makes the 
Christian a Christian and is the pledge of his future eternal 
life. The confession of the metaphysical divinity of Jesus 
is so much the distinctive mark of the fourth Gospel that 
even sceptical critics acknowledge that the violent con- 
troversy which has raged for a hundred years about this 
Gospel is aimed only at the divinity of Christ proclaimed 
therein. 

Since John is presenting this Gospel of the divinity of 
Jesus to the Churches of Asia Minor, he presents to them 
again and very forcibly the same fundamental Christian fact 
in a personal letter. The genuineness of this first Epistle of 
John is, according to general critical opinion, conceded with 
that of the Fourth Gospel. Those critics who deny the 
Johannine origin of the Fourth Gospel see themselves forced, 
nevertheless, to the acknowledgement that the latter, as well 
as the three Johannine Epistles and the Apocalypse, belong 
“to the same school... the Johannine school.’’? Now, 
according to the first Epistle of John, the Son of God, who 
has given his life for us, is true God, and his mission and 
act of redemption are for that very reason the greatest proof 
of God’s love for us: “By this hath the charity of God 
appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten 
Son into the world, that we may live by him... .’’ (1 John 
iv, 9). ‘*‘ And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for 
ours only, but also for those of the whole world’ (1 John ii, 2). 
‘The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin’’ (1 John i, 7). “In this we have known the charity of 


1 Otto Schmiedel remarks very pertinently in Die Hauptprobleme der 
Leben-Jesu-Forschung, 17 (Tiibingen, 1906): ‘‘ For the last hundred, 
and especially the last sixty years, a bitter controversy has raged over 
this Gospel; and it is not strange, for the fight concerning the divinity 
of Christ is immediately connected with it.”’ 

2 Eduard von Hartmann, Das Christentum des N. T., 246 (1905). 


The Divinity of Christ atter this Death 385 


God, because he hath laid down his life for us’’ (1 John 
ili, 16). 

Faith in the divinity of the Son and love of him is a divine 
commandment and the best proof of faith in, and love of, 


the Father: ‘‘ This is his [God’s] commandment, That we 
should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ .. .” 
(1 John iii, 23). ‘*‘ Everyone that loveth him who begot, 


loveth him also who is born of him” (1 John v, 1). 

Faith in the divinity of the Son leads to the victory over 
the world, and confers eternal life: ‘‘ Who is he that over- 
cometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son 
of God?’’ (1 John v, 5). “And this is the testimony, that 
God hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in his Son. 
He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son 
hath not life. These things I write to you, that you may know 
that you have eternal life; you who believe in the name of 
the Son of God’’ (1 John v, 11-13). 

But he that denies the divinity of the Son is a liar and 
antichrist, and accuses God the Father and the Son them- 
selves of false witness: ‘‘ Who is a liar, but he who denieth 
that Jesus is the Christ? This is antichrist, who denieth 
the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the 
same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son, hath 
the Father also’’ (1 John ii, 22, 23). ‘“‘ He that believeth in 
the Son of God hath the testimony of God in himself. He 
that believeth not the Son, maketh him a liar, because he 
believeth not in the testimony which God hath testified of 
his Son’”’ (1 John v, Io). 

This divine christology of St John offers absolute certainty, 
because it corresponds to the original teaching of Christianity, 
and goes back to the testimony of the Apostle, as an eye- 
and ear-witness: ‘He that confesseth the Son, hath the 
Father also. As for you, let that which you have heard from 
the beginning abide in you. If that abide in you which you 
have heard from the beginning, you also shall abide in the 
Son and in the Father ’’ (1 John il, 23, 24). ‘“‘ That which we 
have seen and have heard, we declare unto you; that you also 
may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with 
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ .. .’’ (1 John 
i, 3). “‘ And we know that the Son of God is come. And he 
hath given us understanding that we may know the true 
God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and 
life eternal ’’ (1 John v, 20). 

Just as clearly does John announce the divinity of Jesus 
in the Apocalypse.1 What the God of Israel had testified of 


1 For the thorough pourtrayal of the christology of the Apocalypse, 
see F. Biichsel, Die Christologte der Offenbarung Johannis, Haller 
Dissertation (1907); and especially Ermoni, Za Cvtstologia dell’ 
A pocalisse, Rivista di sctenze theolog., 369-383, 538-552 (1908). 

T; 25 


386 Christ and the Critics 


himself by the Prophets, and what the same book of Revela- 
tion says of the heavenly Father (i, 8; xxi, 6), that can Christ 
also testify to himself: ‘‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first 
and the last, the beginning and the end. ... I have the 
keys of death and of hell’’ (i, 18; ii, 8; xxii, 13). To him 
is due from all creatures in heaven and on earth the same 
honour and adoration as to God. The seer of Patmos, who 
once reclined trustingly upon the breast of Jesus, now falls, 
as if dead, before the throne of God and at the feet of the 
Son of God (i, 17), and describes with trembling hand the 
glory he had looked upon. ‘And I beheld, and I heard 
the voice of many angels round about the throne and the 
living creatures and the ancients, and the number of them 
-was thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice: The 
Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity 
and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and benedic- 
tion. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth 
and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are 
in them, I heard all saying : To him that sitteth on the throne 
and to the Lamb, benediction and honour and glory and power 
for ever and ever. ... Salvation to our God, who sitteth 
upon the throne and to the Lamb”’ (v, 11-13; vii, 10). 

And this putting of Christ on an equality with God is found 
in a book in which even our critical opponents “ have always 
believed they perceived the most authentic indications of the 
original Christian sentiment, which has become to us perhaps 
somewhat strange,’’? and in a book which protests against 
any kind of apotheosis and adoration of created beings (xix, 
TOG KIO); 

John, therefore, brings forward the divinity of Jesus in hts 
Gospel, in his first Epistle and in the Apocalypse in the most 
outspoken and demonstrative way conceivable. This mode 
of representation is in striking contrast to that of the 
synoptists, who, it is true, report the testimony of Jesus to 
his divinity, and let us see in their Gospels their absolute 
faith in his divinity, without, however, so frankly making 
the divine christology the sharply defined and clearly out- 
spoken main thought and chief object of their writings. 

The second difference which we notice between the Johan- 
nine and synoptical announcements of the divinity of Jesus 
lies in a form and conception, first met with in John, in the 
name and doctrine of the Logos (Word), into which John 
condenses all that he has to say to us of the incarnate Son 
of God. 

Whoever has carefully read the three older Gospels is greatly 


1 Karl Miller, Unser Herr, 8 (1906). Ed. von Hartmann thinks that 
the Apocalypse “‘ still stands entirely within the limits of Jewish Christi- 
anity, and shows scarcely any traces of Pauline influence.”—Das 
Christentum des N. T., 246. 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 387 


astonished when, at the beginning of the Fourth Gospel, 
he reads the following remarkable and in the highest degree 
peculiar sentences: “In the beginning was the Word: and 
the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made 
by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. 
In him was life: and the life was the light of men. And the 
light [of the Logos] shineth in darkness: and the darkness 
did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, 
whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to 
give testimony of the light, that all men might believe 
through him. He was not the light, but was to give testi- 
mony of the light. That was the true light, which en- 
lighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was 
in the world: and the world was made by him: and the 
world knew him [the Logos] not. He came unto his own: 
and his own received him not. But as many as received him, 
he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that 
believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And 
the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw 
his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the 
Father, full of grace and truth. . . . And of his fulness we 
have all received: and grace for grace. . . . No man hath 
seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the 
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’’ (John 1, 1-14, 
16, 18). 

Before John proceeds to the narration of the human yet 
divine story of the earthly life and activity of Jesus, he 
wishes in this prologue, first of all, to characterize the pre- 
existent personality of the Word, and, indeed, at once, the 
nature of the Word in itself (John i, 1, 2). The Word is a 
pre-existent and transcendent being. To him belong begin- 
ning and eternity before all worlds. ‘In the beginning,’’ 
when God had not yet created the world,! the Word was 
already with God.? It is not a question here of a merely 
external proximity of God and the Word, but of an inner 
relation of being. The Word is a being similar to God, a 
personal, divine being, God himself (verse 1). Only as such, 
as a personal divine being, could the Word be with God from 
eternity (verse 2). 

A divine activity also is characteristic of this divine nature 
of the Word (verses 3-5). The creation of the whole universe 


1 This Johannine expression, ‘‘ In the beginning,’’ refers plainly to 
Genesis 1, 1. 

2 In the words, ‘‘ In the beginning was the Word,” the thought is, 
indeed, at first simply of the period before the world; behind that, how- 
ever, the idea of eternity merely, as it is included in that of divinity. 
Julius Grill, Untersuchungen tiber die Entstehung des vierten Evan- 
geliums, i, go note, also 89-105 (Tiibingen, 1902), 


388 Christ and the Critics 


is an act of the Word, and in fact this creation of all things 
out of nothing is so exclusively his work, that nothing what- 
ever came into existence save through him. Every theory 
of dualism as an explanation of the universe, and all thought 
of a created being acting as an intermediary, is thus ex- 
cluded in advance (verse 3). To the creation is added the 
vevelation of the Word. As he is the cause and origin of 
the material life and light, so is he also the bearer and dis- 
penser of light and life—for the most part uncomprehended and 
rejected by men—wherever these shine and flow (verses 4, 5).. 

If, therefore, the Word has already directly, by his pre- 
existent work of creation and by his revelation before Christ’s 
coming, outwardly manifested himself, so too he has appeared 
in the fulness of time directly and in person in Jesus Christ, in 
order to complete the revelation of God to mankind and the 
spiritual re-creation of the world (verses 6-18). 

It was John the Baptist who first brought to men the news 
that the Word had come into the world in a personal form, 
and had presented himself as essential light and as a sun of 
revelation to mankind, so that all might believe in the Light, 
the Word (verses 6, 7). Some understood this erroneously, 
in that they mistook the mere man John for the Word, who is 
essentially God (verse 8). But in the divine Word, who is the 
true Light, that alone lighteth every man actually and truly, 
and to whom the whole world owes its existence, very few 
believed, when he himself appeared in his own world and 
among his chosen people (verses 9-11). The few, however, 
who did believe in him and received the Word through faith, 
were thereby united with him spiritually and therefore 
adopted as sons of God (12-13). This climax of revelation 
and redemption, however, could be reached only by the Word, 
the only-begotten, metaphysical Son of God, assuming human 
nature and, as the true, God-incarnate Jesus Christ, pouring 
out in abundance his grace and truth upon mankind, and 
proclaiming and proving his divine glory visibly to men 
(verses 14-18). 

John now undertakes to relate how this revelation of the 
divine glory, truth and grace, and of the divine nature and 
personality of the Word, or Son of God, worked itself out 
in the life of Jesus, in his works, in his teaching and in his 
entire testimony to himself. As his Gospel is nothing else 
than the testimony and proof of Jesus to himself as regards 
his human nature, Messiahship, and divine sonship, so it is 
also nothing else than a continuous commentary on the pro- 
logue about the Word (Logos). Or, rather, this prologue 
about the Word is only John’s synopsis of the Fourth Gospel, 
taken from the life, the words and the works of Jesus and 
concisely put together, It is not correct to say that John 
presents no doctrine of the Logos, although he uses the word 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 389 


Logos ;' nor is it right to assert that the Logos idea is found 
in John only in the prologue to his Gospel, while everywhere 
else the Anointed One, the Ambassador of the Father appears 
in its place. The word Logos certainly does not recur again 
in the Gospel, at least, no more in the full significance of 
the prologue.? Yet the fundamental ideas of the Logos 
doctrine in the prologue—the pre-existence and eternity of the 
Logos, his activity in creation and revelation, his human 
nature, Messiahship, divine sonship, and divinity, and the 
Logos as true, divine Light and Life, the visible glory of 
God and the personified grace of God—these form the dis- 
tinctive mark of the Fourth Gospel.* By the prologue, the 
reader of John’s Gospel is conducted in a natural succession 
of steps from the eternity of the Word through vast antiquity 
and through that period of his activity which antedated the 
creation of the world and the birth of Christ to the present, 
in which the Evangelist, on the ground of his own experience, 
informs us of the manifestation of the divine Saviour. And, 
in fact, the result of this report agrees in all respects with 
the prologue—Jesus Christ proves himself by his life, words 
and work to be the divine Word, and the Light, Grace and 
Truth, as well as the Son of God, who became flesh for us, 
redeemed us through his suffering and will, through faith in 
him and love to him, confer on men continually eternal life 
and light. 

The Evangelist himself declares authentically in his first 
Epistle that the whole life of Christ and the whole christ- 
ology of the Fourth Gospel—in fact, everything that John on 
the strength of his own experience reports of Jesus on his 
own eye and ear testimony—is to be considered as Logos 
doctrine. At the very beginning of this Epistle he remarks 
with an evident retrospective glance at the Gospel and a clear 
outlook on the entire future import of his writings: “ That 
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which 
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon 
and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life . . . that 
we declare unto you’’ (1 John i, 1, 3). Traces of the same 
Logos doctrine appear in the further course of the Johannine 
Epistle more than once.® In particular, the mystery of the 
three Persons of God is expressed in the formula ‘the 
Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost ’’ (1 John v, 7). 

Even the christology of the Apocalypse, which has been 
so frequently brought into conflict with that of the Fourth 

1 Theodor Zahn, Zinlettung in das N. T., 11, 535 ff. (Leipzig, 1899). 

ys Paul Schanz, Apologte des Christentums, 11, 633, 2nd ed. (Freiburg, 
I . 
SHEER See |OnN Vv, 90+ Vill, 55 :3.%,95 + SVil, Os X1V, 27. 

4 See the admirable and thorough presentation of the subject by 
J. Grimm, /.c., 31-88, 285-384. 

5 See Grill, of. cit., 301-303, 312. 


390 Christ and the Critics 


Gospel, finds support in the Logos doctrine. Christ is for it 
the beginning of the Creation (ili, 14). He sits in glory on 
the throne of heaven (iv, 2; v, 1). He overcomes the world 
(vi). He is the sin-destroying Lamb of God, slain for 
humanity (v, 6, 8, 123; vii,.17). ‘And ‘“his namé is called 
the Word of God” (xix, 13). Upon him the seer of Patmos 
confers the attributes of God and demands for him divine 
honour and adoration (see above). 

St John uses, therefore, for the expression of his faith in 
the person of the Saviour and especially in his divinity a 
form peculiarly his own, which appears in no synoptic Gospel 
and in no older canonical book of the New Testament what- 
ever. Not as if he depreciated the other usual designa- 
tions for Jesus Christ, such as Son of David, Son of Man, 
Messiah, Son of God, God.and so forth. We find all of these 
expressions in John’s writings, and oftener than the term 
Logos. But what all these expressions say at the same time, 
John sums up in the one title used by him : the Word of God, 
the Word of Light, the Word of Life—the Logos. The title 
of Logos is for him the sum total of all christology, and in 
particular the precise expression for the metaphysical divine 
sonship and true divinity of Jesus. For this reason and in 
this sense the Johannine form of christology—the name 
Word, and the Logos doctrine itself—was handed down, 
as an inheritance, to the Church science of succeeding years. 


2. The Origin of the Johannine Christology. 


Liberal criticism clings to the fact, just stated, of the 
peculiar Johannine christology, in order to make people 
believe that John arrived at his doctrine of the divinity of 
Jesus in contrast to the teaching of Christ and of the older 
New Testament writings, and in connection with the Hellenic- 
Alexandrian philosophy. Pfleiderer, who represents this pet 
theory of the modern investigators of Jesus, most exhaus- 
tively and with the courage of desperation! sums up his view 
in the words: ‘“ The fourth Evangelist came to the apothe- 
osis of Christ under the names of ‘Logos’ and ‘only be- 
gotten Son of God’... not, of course, through historical 
tradition from the sayings of Jesus uttered for any such 
purpose, which are still not discoverable even in the oldest 
sources; and also not through mere reflection on the im- 
pression which the historical person had made upon him. 

: The explanation is much easier to find in the fact that 
the fourth Evangelist was under the influence of the Hellenic 


1 Especially in the following works: Das Urchristentum, ii, 28, 2nd 
ed. (Berlin, 1903); Das Christusbtld des urchristlichen Glaubens, 12 
(Berlin, 1903); Die Entstehung des Christentums, 215-240 (Miinchen, 


1g05). 


Se ne ek ee 


Che Divinity of Christ after his Death 391 


and Gnostic fantasies, prevailing in his time and environ- 
ment, which he sought to join on to the older Gospel tradi- 
tion.’”’! The Zurich professor, P. W. Schmiedel, adds in 
a spirit of mutual understanding the following: “It ought 
never to be doubted that he [John] has borrowed the word 
Logos and the ideas associated with it from Philo.’’? Accord- 
ingly, John carried over to the historical person Jesus the 
pagan-Jewish Logos-ideas of Philo’s religious philosophy, 
and thereby made of the man Jesus a Son of God and a 
divine person. That this is not correct is evident from all 
our arguments concerning the divinity of Jesus. John is not 
the first to teach the divinity of Jesus; but this divinity was 
testified to by Jesus Christ himself, was adored by the 
original Church, and impressed upon it by Paul and the 
synoptists, even if not in the Johannine form and style of 
representation. It is only a matter, therefore, of the second- 
ary question, whether the fourth Evangelist derived this form 
of his christology—the Logos doctrine—from a non-chris- 
tian source—namely, from the Hellenic religious philosophy 
of Philo. 

The first philosopher who spoke of the “ Logos’’ was 
Heraclitus the ‘‘ Obscure,’’ of Ephesus, about 500 B.c. The 
Logos is, according to his hylozoistic and pantheistic view, 
equivalent to “measure, law, reason and a rational order of 
the world.’’ It is identical with the material, unconscious, 
impersonal element (fire) which formed the world. 

Anaxagoras, supported by the Heraclitian hylozoism and 
pantheism, assumed, together with the material, world-form- 
ing element, an immaterial, transcendental and conscious 
principle which fashions and organizes the material world, and 
hence is called vovts—that is, reason or idea, not Logos. 

Plato brings this reason, which he also calls vots, not 
Logos, into close relation with God. The world-forming and 
world-organizing reason is a quality of God. God made use 
of it for world-building, because he himself is too exalted and 
abstract to be able to come into touch with the world. The 
Stoics restored the Logos to the place of the vovs, as a 
world-forming principle, determining matter. They ap- 
proached again also the hylozoism of Heraclitus in so far as 
the Logos, which they generally called God, was yet essen- 
tially identical with matter. Everything that is, must, accord- 
ing to the Stoics, have in itself Logos (Reason); yet the 
Logos must be thought of substantially. The Logos is the 
soul of the universe; the universe is the body of the Logos. 
The Stoics’ theory of the Logos is higher than the panthe- 
istic-materialistic Logos theory of Heraclitus only in so far 
as the Stoics’ Logos has intelligence and consciousness, and 


1 Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 225. 
2 P, W. Schmiedel, Das vierte Evangelium, 118 (Ttibingen, 1906). 


392 Christ and tbe Critics 


is identified only with the finer elements, such as air and fire, 
not with the coarser elements, earth and water.? 

Closely related to the Stoics’ doctrine of the Logos is the 
Logos speculation of the Alexandrian-Jewish religious philo- 
sophy. While the Jews of Palestine kept themselves as 
much as possible aloof from Grecian thought, literature and 
teaching, the Jews of the dispersion saw themselves drawn 
into the Alexandrian religious and philosophical movement 
of the minds of the time. Partly from apologetic reasons, 
partly from a real inward enthusiasm for Greek philosophy, 
they endeavoured to unite Mosaic theology and Hellenic 
speculation, or, at all events, to shed light upon them 
through mutual contact, and to make them scientifically more 
profound. A rich and edifying theological-philosophical 
literature affords a proof of this. One needs only to remem- 
ber the Alexandrian books*of the Old Testament, as well as 
the Old Testament Apocrypha and pseudo-epigrapha.? The 
philosopher of religion, Philo, devoted himself in particular 
to this, more than to the dangerous reconciliation of Jewish 
faith with Grecian culture. In doing so, he took from pagan 
philosophy not only form and figure, but only too often also 
materials and ideas, whereby the revealed truth of faith was 
lost in Greek speculation. This was pre-eminently true in 
regard to the fundamental view of the universe. 

The monotheistic view of the universe was for Philo not 
merely an inviolable truth, but precisely the truth, in opposi- 
tion to Greek pantheism and materialism. Indeed, in order 
to remove himself as far as possible from the pantheistic and 
material idea of God, Philo, quite in the spirit of the con- 
temporary theology of Judaism, conceived of God, not merely 
as an absolutely one, spiritual, personal, supernatural being, 
but as a being so exalted above everything earthly and 
material, that there exists between him and the material 
world a complete contrast. God is not merely different, but 
absolutely separated, from matter. The latter has always 
existed, as a second principle, together with God (Philo is 
not conscious of the fact that with this dualistic view he 
really gives up his monotheism), and when the world was to 
be formed and organized out of it, God could not himself 
directly come into combination with it in order to consum- 


1 Whoever wishes to inform himself more precisely concerning the 
Greek doctrine of the Logos will find ample information in the extensive 
literature referring to it. We mention especially Max Heinze, Die 
Lehre vom Logos in der griechischen Philosophie (1872); Aall, Der 
Logos, Geschichte seiner Entwicklung in der gretchischen Philosophie 
und der christl, Literatur (1896-99); Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophie der 
Griechen (1869-1903). 

2 See the Afokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testamentes, 
published by E. Kautzsch in union with numerous experts (Tiibingen, 
1900). 


~ 


The Divinity of Christ after this Death 393 


mate the world’s formation. He employed for this an endless 
number of intermediary beings, called Logoi. The Logoi— 
that is, the sum total of the intermediary beings standing 
between God and the world—have their origin and find their 
unity in the one true Logos. 

Now Philo defines this Logos as being connected, on the 
one hand, with the Platonic vots, and, on the other, with 
the Logos of the Stoics. It differs from the latter only in 
the fact that, as in Philo, it is neither amalgamated with 
divinity, nor with matter, and therefore is not interpreted as 
pantheistic or materialistic. Philo tries to rescue his doctrine 
of the Logos from the swamp of Stoic materialism and pan- 
theism by calling to his assistance the Platonic theory of 
ideas, world-reason and the world-pervading soul. Accord- 
ing to him, the Logos is the sum total of the divine ideas, in 
accordance with which the world was to be formed—that is, 
the rational, divine plan of the universe. At the moment 
when God uttered in words this ideal world-plan or world- 
thought, the Logos issued from God into a union with 
matter. Through this union of the ideal world-plan with 
matter, the actual world came into existence. The Logos, 
therefore, became the world-creator, and remains continu- 
ally the instrument wherewith God brings forth, preserves 
and governs the actual affairs of the world. In a word, “ the 
Logos of Philo is the condensation and essential unity of all 
the forces which proceed from God, and thenceforth, inde- 
pendently and rationally—that is, wholly in harmony with the 
nature, thought and will of God—are working, world-creating, 
world-maintaining and ruling in both the infinitely great and 
infinitely little of the universe.’ 

It is evident that Philo has construed this doctrine of the 
Logos exclusively in accordance with the propositions of 
Greek philosophy. Only subsequently, and only so far as it 
is necessary and possible, does he try to gain support for it 
from the Old Testament, Jewish views and mode of expres- 
sion. The double meaning of the Greek word Logos—reason 
(thought) and speech (word)—offered a point of connection 
with the Old Testament doctrine of the divine Word, or 
Word of God. In most cases where in the Old Testament 
reference is made to the word or speech of God, the corre- 
sponding Hebraic expression (dabar) of the original text is 
rendered in the Alexandrian Septuagint by Logos. The 
Logos, the Word of God, in consequence of the Old Testa- 
ment, plays in the natural creation, preservation and govern- 
ment of the world, as well as in the supernatural revelation 
and mediation of divine salvation, a very prominent réle; in 
fact, in some passages, the Logos of God seems to appear 


1 Julius Grill, Untersuchungen wber die Entstehung des vierten 
Evangeliums, i, 143. 


394 Christ and the Critics 


almost as an individual being together with God. If we 
add that the extremely allegorical exegesis of the Alexan- 
drian school was able to expand all the Logos passages at 
will, Philo could without great difficulty succeed in harmon- 
izing the Old Testament Word-Logos with his Greek Reason- 
Logos. 

Above all, however, Philo thought that he perceived in the 
Books of Wisdom in the Old Testament a direct analogue 
to the Logos of Reason. The “ Sophia,’’ or Wisdom of God, 
appears therein,’ not only as a quality of Jehovah, but pre- 
cisely as the highest hypostatical principle of the creation, 
guidance and government of the world and of all God’s 
revelation to the world. For that reason, and, above all, 
because the “‘ Sophia ’’ is also occasionally called ‘‘ Logos ’’ 
in the Book of Wisdom itself,* Philo made the Old Testa- 
ment Sophia equivalent to his philosophical Reason-Logos. 
“It is true, Philo once differentiates the Logos from the divine 
Wisdom, as if the latter were the former’s mother; and he is 
pleased to represent this as the Mother of the universe, 
which has God for its Father; it has, from the seed, which 
it has received from God, given birth to the one, dearly beloved 
Son and to this world as well; but it is clear enough from 
a comparison of all his utterances that for him the Sophia 
and the Logos are not essentially different—only two designa- 
tions of the same divine intermediary being, which he repre- 
sents, according to the connection, either as the receiving, 
motherly principle, or as the active, creative principle.’ 

If now we compare the Logos of Philo with the Logos of 
John, it is at once evident that the fourth Evangelist has 
both the Logos name and also several Logos ideas in common 
with Philo and the Alexandrian-Jewish popular theology. 
This does not need to be demonstrated either in general or 
in detail. On the other hand, however, between the Hellenic 
Logos-doctrine of Philo (there is no need of considering the 
Greek doctrine), and the Logos-Christ of John, there yawns 
a mighty, impassable gulf. 

1 Especially Prov. viii; Eccl. xxiv; Wisdom vii, 9. 

SriX At sex Vege sR ViLt Tes 

3 Johannes J. Ign. Dodllinger, Hezdentum und Judentum, 845 (Regens- 
burg, 1857). For the survey of the Logos doctrine of Philo, see 
Grossmann, QOuestiones Philon. De Logo Philonis, gq. altera (1829); 
Gfrorer, Philo und die alexandrintsche Theosophte (1831); Dahne, 
Geschichtliche Darstellung der jtidtsch-alexandrinischen Religionsphilo- 
Sophie (1834); Fr. Keferstein, Philos Lehre von den géttlichen Mittel- 
wesen (1846); Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria (1875); Soulier, La 
doctrine du Logos chez Philon d’Alexandrie (1876); J. Réville, Le 
Logos @aprés Philon (1877); La doctrine du Logos dans le 1V Evangile 
et dans les euvres de Philon (1881); Fr. Klasen, Die alttestamentliche 
Wetsheit und der Logos der jpitidisch-alex. Philosophie (1878); Drum- 
mond, Philo Judeus, or the Jewtsh Alexandrian Philosophy (1888) ; 
Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, iii, 2 Part, 3rd ed. (1881); 
Julius Grill, Untersuchungen tiber die Entstehung des IV Evangeliums, 
i, 105-160. 


The Divinity of Christ after his Death 395 


In the first place, the Logos of John is, in the full sense 
of the word, a person, while the Logos of the Alexandrian 
philosopher, and of Greek philosophy in general, is only an 
abstract idea. It is true, occasionally it seems as if Philo 
were struggling with his own world of ideas, in the effort to 
conceive of the Logos as a personal—that is, a self-existent, 
conscious being. Some scholars even formerly believed that 
he brought this so far as to personify his Logos idea. 
To-day, however, critics unanimously recognize that the 
Alexandrian-philosophical Logos is either a mere abstraction, 
or, in any case, that, half as an abstraction, half as a distinct, 
individual being, it ‘‘ floats indistinctly midway between per- 
sonal and impersonal entity.’’? 

In contrast to this, the Logos of John has been with God 
before all worlds as a concrete, conscious person, has mani- 
fested himself as a personal, divine being in the creation of 
the world and in the history of salvation, and has finally 
“assumed in the Saviour a living, personal and distinctly 
visible form.’’* This is so evident that even the enemies of 
Christianity concede to us the proof of it. Only the Philo- 
sopher of the Unconscious undertakes to cast doubt upon the 
conscious personality of John’s Logos, and to put him in 
this respect on a level with the Logos of Philo.* 

With the personality, a second essential difference in the 
Logos of John is at the same time included—the incarnation 
of the Logos. “That the Logos could become flesh would 
have been for Philo an impossible idea.’’> ‘“ Philo had as yet 
known nothing of an incarnation of the Logos; it had no 
place in his sharply dualistic view of the universe.’’® ‘“ There 
can be no doubt that from these (philosophical) assumptions 
it was utterly impossible to arrive at the thought of an incar- 
nation of the Logos.’’? This is so true, that the Christian 
Gnostics, precisely because of their falling back on Philo’s 
ideas of the Logos, either directly denied the incarnation of 
the Logos in Jesus Christ, or allowed the divine Logos to 
enter into only an apparent and merely external connection 
with Jesus. 


1 Heinze, Lehre vom Logos, 291 ff. 

2 Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, iii, 378, 3rd ed. Similarly, 
Soulier, Za doctrine du Logos chez Philon, 162 f.; Réville, La doctrine 
du Logos dans le IV Evangile et dans les euvres de Philon, 26-29; 
Drummond, Philo Jude@us, ii, 223-273; Aall, Geschichte der Logosidee 
in der griech. Philosophie, 217 (1896) ; Schtirer, Geschichte des judischen 
Volkes, iii, 556 f., 3rd ed.; Grill, of. cit., 139-144, 170 f. 

8 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 64 (1900). 

4 “© On the point whether the Logos is to be conceived as personal or 
not, John is no clearer than Philo.” —Ed. von Hartmann, Das Christen- 
tum des N. T., 284 (1905). 

5 P. W. Schmiedel, Das JV Evangelium gegentiber den drei ersten, 
118 (Tiibingen, 1906). 

6 Pfleiderer, Die Entstehung des Christentums, 227 (1905). 

? Grill, Untersuchungen, 329. 


396 ' Cbrist and the Critics 


In regard to this Gnosticism, as well as to its Philonian 
model, John speaks in his prologue these decisive words: 
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and 
we saw his glory’’ (John i, 14)—that is, in the unity of the 
historical person, Jesus, it came to a real and abiding union 
of the divine Logos with the bodily and spiritual nature of 
a unique human being. This confession is for John funda- 
mental towards every Gnostic denial or subtilization of the 
doctrine of the incarnation: “‘ Every spirit which confesseth 
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God; and every 
spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God’’ (1 John iv, 2). 
“For many seducers are gone out into the world, who con- 
fess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a 
seducer and an antichrist” (2 John 7). To prove the true 
incarnation of the Logos, John then sets to work to relate 
exactly what he had seen and heard of the Word of Life 
(1 John i, 1). The Fourth Gospel is nothing else than the 
concrete demonstration that the divine Logos has led a com- 
plete divine and human life in the human person of Jesus. 
The same Evangelist, who most fully represents the divinity 
of the Logos-Saviour, has also represented Jesus in all 
essential characteristics in his human nature, as scarcely one 
of the three synoptists has done.? 

According to John, the Logos became flesh, and lived and 
worked as a man, because he was the Messiah, the personal 
instrument of God for the revelation to, and redemption of, 
mankind. The Logos of John is that almighty Word of God 
(‘“God’s Logos’’), by which the whole universe was called 
into existence; which has worked in the world ever since the 
beginning of creation in the most manifold ways; which came 
to the Patriarchs and Prophets; and which has gone, as a 
living being, through the whole history of the chosen people, 
and proclaimed himself everywhere as the future Messiah 
of. the world;{john (1, \v,, vii, villi, 4x; >x).> Hinallysa tie 
divine Word has really become flesh in order to complete 
among us his Messianic revelation and work of salvation; 
to bring to us the grace of redemption by his whole earthly 
life, teachings and expiatory death; and to remain to all 
eternity the principle of all truth and grace.? 

The Logos of Philo has nothing to do with the Messiah. 
The Alexandrian, it is true, shares fully the Messianic hopes 
and expectations of his race, especially the national-political 


1 See the detailed proof in Th. Zahn, Zinlettung in das N. T., ii, 539 
Leipzig, 1899); Johannes Weiss, Chrzstus, 83-86; R. H. Strachan, £x- 
positor, 143 (Feb. 1910). One must truly be colour-blind to be able 
to assert, as P. W. Schmiedel does in Das JV Evangelium, 23, that the 
only noticeable human feature in John’s portrait of Jesus is the utter- 
ance ‘‘ Jesus wept”’ at the grave of Lazarus. 

2 See the prologue of John’s Gospel, as well as the whole Gospel, as an 
elaboration of it. 


Che Divinity of Christ after his Death 397 


hopes. He describes! with satisfaction and in glowing 
colours precisely that kind of a Messiah and those Messianic 
expectations, which we have learned to recognize as rab- 
binical and pharisaical Messianic ideas. In these, however, 
the Logos is not mentioned in a single syllable. Indeed, “ it 
did not even occur to Philo to think of a connection between 
this Logos idea and the thought of the Messiah.’’? His 
whole conception of the Logos was opposed to the doctrine 
of the Messiah. It is true, Philo tries, as we have already 
said, to harmonize his Logos with the ‘“‘ Word of God’’ and 
with the ‘‘ Wisdom” of the Old Testament, so that we 
expect that he must surely go on from that point to a 
Messiah-Logos. But he brings the conceptions Word-Logos 
(“ Word of God’’) and Reason-Logos (‘“‘ Wisdom of God’’), 
which, in the great connection of the Old Testament, cer- 
tainly belong to the order of Messianic prophecy,® into union 
with the Logos theory only by way of an appendage, and 
with a complete misunderstanding of its Messianic character. 
His Logos is, in any case, only fastened on to the Old Testa- 
ment. In its nature and origin it comes solely from Greek 
philosophy; it is) identical with the Logos of Heraclitus, 
Plato and the Stoics, as world-soul, world-idea, world-reason. 

With this, however, the divinity of the Logos cannot be 
compatible. The Logos has, in any case, a meaning and 
place in Philo’s system and is capable of playing its réle as 
world-framer and world-director, only if and because it is 
not of a divine nature. The nature of God is, according to 
Philo, abstract being, ‘‘an abstraction, leading the mind 
beyond the idea of personality. . .. From this conception 
of absolute being there resulted such a contrast between 
divinity and the world of finite and material existence, that 
the thought of an immediate relation of causation became 
unrealizable. The practical foundation of the universe was 
put outside the domain of God, and, so far as it was not 
included in the dualistic assumption of eternal matter, was 
recognized in the intermediary being of the Logos.”* The 
Logos is at once the dividing wall and the connecting link 
between God and the world—no more. The making the 
Logos equivalent to the “ Word,’’ the “ Wisdom’’ of God 
has also no more signification. On the contrary, Philo con- 
ceived precisely these two Old Testament notions absolutely 
as intermediary beings, who stand in rank above the world, 
but below divinity. 


1 Cohn and Wendland’s edition of De premizs et poents, 15 ff. (vol. v, 
gen i.) ; Ve execratronibus, 8, 9 (vol. v,,374.41.). 

2 Kriiger, Dreteinigkett u. Gottmenschhett, 100 (Tiibingen, 190s). 

3 See the article Logos, by Atzberger in Kuzirchen-Lexikon, viii, 
97-125, 2nd ed. 

4 Grill, Untersuchungen tiber die Entstehung des IV Evangeliums, 


.72, 


398 Christ and the Critics 


The Logos of John, however, stands, as we have amply 
demonstrated, plainly higher, not only than all men, but also 
than all intermediary beings between God and men. He is, 
before all worlds and from eternity, the God of nature: “In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God’’! (John i, 1). With this, the 
sharpest conceivable antithesis to the Greek speculation of 
Philo about the Logos, the first verse of John’s Gospel begins ; 
the following Logos-prologue carries this antithesis still 
further; and the entire Gospel brings it to a comprehensive 
conclusion. This contrast is no less sharply defined in the 
first Epistle of John and in the Apocalypse. Gustav Kriger 
also is of the opinion that ‘‘ for the Evangelist the Logos 
is the central idea, by which to reveal what Jesus Christ, in 
his divine characteristics, has been to him.’’? 

If we summarize the main differences which in general 
separate the Logos of John from that of Philo and also from 
that of Hellenic philosophy, it is clear that the former cannot 
possibly be derived from the latter. 

John denies and combats the Hellenic and Philonian ideas 
of the Logos, together with the Christian Gnostic ideas 
which were akin to them, by keeping remote from the Logos 
(Jesus Christ) precisely what is regarded in those specula- 
tions as an essential element of the Logos doctrine—namely, 
the Logos as an intermediary being, as a world-framer, a 
world-soul, and the shadowy, abstract Logos of reason. On 
the contrary, John predicates of his Logos, as essential, 
precisely that which is wanting in the Logos of Philo and 
the Gnostics. His Logos is that divine Person, who, un- 


1 J. Grill very rightly argues that this Johannine doctrine of the 
Logos resulted from the decided adherence of the Evangelist to the 
Personality of God, just as the hybrid Logos of Philo was a sequence 
of the abstract conception of the idea of God. ‘‘ Since the Evangelist 
. . . holds firmly to the presupposition of a real, complete, personal life 
of God, even in feeling and willing, he arrives at a conclusion which 
gives to his Logos a signification thoroughly different from the nature 
of the Logos of Philo. If God is a personality, then he is not to be 
thought of without an object of his thinking and willing, knowledge 
and love. If he is absolute being, this object must be included in 
himself, and cannot come to him merely as an external being. If, 
however, the objective in God is to be an adequate object of his 
receptive and spontaneous activity, it must itself have just as truly the 
character of the Absolute as of the personal. ... The one, absolute 
being appears thus as subject-object; not in a logically abstract sense, 
but, so to speak, polarized in the real relation of person to person. 
Thereby the idea of God has actually reached the highest possible degree 
of vitality, and the Logos is elevated above the level of the intermediary 
being.” —Untersuchungen tiber die Entstehung des 1V Evangeliums, 178. 
Thereby the liberal-Protestant scholar has at the same time suggested 
(the further argumentation is a matter of dogmatics) that, and why, 
John’s doctrine of the Logos brings no dualism into the Godhead, 
although it indicates a number of divine Persons. 

2 Dreieinigkett und Gottmenschheit, 97 (Ttibingen, 1905). 


\ 
The Divinity of Christ after his Death 399 


created and eternal, is the primal cause of all creation and 
of all divine revelation in the created world and in mankind; 
and in the fulness of time this person became man, lived 
and worked in Jesus Christ, and completed the redemption 
of humanity. 

It is not worth while, therefore, to designate, with 
Pfleiderer, the Logos christology of John as an attempt to 
connect the Gospel history with Hellenic and Gnostic specu- 
lation; or, with H. Holtzmann, to stamp it as ‘‘ modified 
Alexandrianism”’!; or, even with Eduard von Hartmann, to 
assert that the Logos of John was simply taken over “ from the 
allegorism of Philo, and above all from the confused whims 
of the Gnostics,’’? and that “all that John brings out about 
the nature of the Logos is not only also said, but strongly 
emphasized by Philo.’’* Such an estimate of the Logos- 
doctrine of John contradicts the most fundamental facts of 
the Fourth Gospel, and cannot be logically maintained by its 
own advocates. Not to mention the caricature of the Johan- 
nine christology of Hartmann, which is not to be taken 
seriously, Pfleiderer himself, who finds again the Logos- 
Christ of John not only in Philo’s writings but (to the great 
astonishment of all critics) also in Jewish and Christian 
Gnosticism—yes, in Greek, Eastern Asiatic, Babylonian and 
Egyptian views*—sees himself finally compelled to concede 
the decisive and essential difference between the Logos of 
John and that of all other speculations.° Compressed into 
one sentence, the whole wisdom of Pfleiderer would express 
itself as follows: John has borrowed his doctrine of the 
Logos from another source, but his doctrine of the Logos 
is essentially the opposite of the doctrine thus borrowed. 

The most important and circumspect opponents of the 
divinity of Christ emphatically reject, then, even to-day this 
“critical’’ explanation of John’s doctrine of the Logos. 
Julius Kaftan remarks: “In the prologue the point in 
question is that of a loose connection with the Hellenic 
Wisdom, without conceding to this a great influence in the 
representation of the Christian thoughts in the Gospel 
itself.”® ‘‘ In the sense of its author the Fourth Gospel is an 
intellectual unity; ... the framing of it by Hellenism a 
chance event of contemporary history.’’” 

Julius Grill, on the ground of a most thorough knowledge 


1 H. Holtzmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes, 45, 2nd ed. 

2 Von Hartmann, Das Christentum des N. T., 284, 2nd ed. 

3 2d., 282. 

4 Die Entstehung des Christentums, 225. For similar obsolete and 
discredited attempts at explanation from modern times, see Grill, l.c., 
206; von Hartmann, /.c., 282. 5°Pileidéerer, U.c),-227% 

6 J. Kaftan, Das Verhaltnis des evangelischen Glaubens zur Logos- 
lehre, in Zettschrift fir Theologie und Kirche, viii, 3 (1897). 

7 J. Kaftan, Jesus und Paulus, 64 (Tiibingen, 1906). 


/ 


400 Christ and the Critics 


of the Philo-Hellenic doctrine of the Logos, as well as of that 
of John, expresses his conviction as follows : ‘‘ However strik- 
ing the whole parallel connection is [between Philo and 
John], it can hardly escape even a superficial observation that 
a fundamental and essential difference in the Logos ideas of 
the two writers makes itself felt throughout.’’? 

The historian of dogma, Harnack, likewise declares : “ The 
reference to Philo and Hellenism is not at all sufficient here 
[to explain John’s christology], since it does not satisfac- 
torily account for even one side of the problem. Grecian 
theologians have not been operative in the Johannine theology 
—even the Logos has little more in common with the Logos 
of Philo than the name. ... The prologue of the Gospel 
starts out with.a great being known to Hellenic readers— 
the Logos; recasts and refashions this—combating implicitly 
false christologies—in order to substitute for it Christ—that 
is, to disclose it as this Jesus Christ.’’? The aged Weiz- 
sacker has expressed himself in like manner concerning “ the 
relation between the Logos doctrines of John and Philo”’: 
“Nothing is easier than to point out the great difference 
between the two doctrines, and to prove that they rest 
on fundamentally different views. And far be it from us, 
indeed, to wish to avoid a recognition of the thoroughly 
original Johannine formation. ... We may perhaps go 
still further, and say not only that John has not borrowed 
the Logos of Philo, but that his doctrine is exactly contrary 
tone 7 . 

If, in fact, we compare what the Johannine doctrine of the 
Logos has in common with the Hellenic Logos-doctrine of 
Philo, with what separates the two, we might well let the 
following serve as the positive result: “The name Logos is 
certainly common to both. That John took this word from 
the contemporary philosophy of the schools and people is, 
however, not therewith proven. Rather is it the case that he 
had already found the name Logos used for Jesus Christ in 
the Church. This was so well known and commonly used 
that the Evangelist simply assumed it, as it had been given. 
But whether the Church took the name Logos over from the 
Greco-Alexandrian philosophy, or from the Old Testament, or 
from both together, must remain uncertain.” 

In a word, John has found at the time of his writing the 
exterior frame, or shell, for his Logos doctrine all ready. 
He adopted it, not merely because in itself it was very well 
adapted to receive both the figure and the substance of the 

1 Untersuchungen tiber dte Entstehung des IV Evangeliums, 139. 

2 Dogmengeschichte, i, 93, 3rd ed.; cf. Harnack, Uder das Ver- 
halinis des Prologs des IV Evangeliums zum ganzen Werk, in Zett- 
schrift fir Theologie und Kirche, ii, 189-231 (1892). 

3 Weizsdcker, Die johannetsche Logoslehre, in Jahrbicher fir Theo- 
loge, vii, 708 (1862). 


Che Divinity of Christ after his Death 401 


idea, but because, as a commonly understood point of 
departure for christological instruction, it was especially 
commendable,+ and because the false Logos doctrine was 
assailable only by opposing to it the true doctrine, while 
retaining the Logos form. After he had purified it from all 
the slag which heathen philosophy, Jewish theosophy, and 
Christian Gnostic speculation had left in it, he poured into 
the “shell’’ the pure and wholly sublime contents of the 
Christian doctrine of the Logos, given by revelation, and 
placed in the frame, prepared for it by Providence, the 
thoroughly original Christian portrait of the God-Man, Jesus 
Christ. 

We say the original Christian portrait of the God-Man, 
Jesus Christ. For however little the Johannine christology 
may, in its nature, be identified with any kind of Logos- 
speculation outside Christianity, just as little may it be set up 
as opposed to the portrait of Jesus in the Christian Church, 
before John’s Gospel, and designated as a novelty on the part 
of the fourth Evangelist. 

‘Vhe modern talk—repeated ad nauseam—about the Christ 
of John being in contrast to the Christ of the older Christian 
writers—namely, the synoptists and Paul—is confused and 
confusing. It can be understood—and is for the most part 
also misunderstood—as if there had been in the Church 
during the first Christian century three essentially different 
conceptions of Christ—one Pauline, one synoptic, and finally 
one Johannine. This, however, does not at all correspond 
to the historical facts. True, Paul, the synoptists and John 
rely upon three special, though parallel, modes of teaching 
and traditions of the life and words of Jesus. The result of 
this is necessarily also three distinctly different representa- 
tions. With John this form of difference is greater, because 
he not only can speak everywhere as an eye-witness, but 
sees himself confronted with the beginnings of the Christian- 
Gnostic heresy, which, in connection with the Jewish and 
Hellenic speculation about the Logos, denied the true 
humanity, Messiahship and divinity of Jesus. Thus he sees 
himself also compelled to elaborate the portrait of Christ as 
completely and decisively as possible, and especially to pour- 
tray the divinity of Jesus more demonstratively and in the form 
of the true divine sonship and of the divine Logos; and this, 
as an eye-witness, he is qualified to do. We have already 
expressly demonstrated this Johannine peculiarity. 


1 The idea of the Logos must have been just as well known to the 
Church in its application to Jesus as the Logos name itself : ‘‘ The self- 
evident introduction at the very beginning of a work plainly pursuing 
a new course shows unmistakably that the Evangelist thought that he 
might take for granted in his readers an acquaintance precisely with 
this idea.”’—Kriiger, Dretetnigkett und Gottmenschhett, 97. 


I. 20 


402 Christ and the Critics 


But this peculiarity is purely external, and the differences 
resulting from it, as contrasted in the Pauline and synoptic 
christology, are thoroughly unessential, and do not affect the 
subject-matter itself. If we take away the Johannine frame 
of the portrait of Christ and the Johannine, that is, the 
contemporaneous, historical shell of the Logos doctrine, 
Jesus Christ stands before us in the Fourth Gospel as that 
divine Lord and Master who descends from the throne of 
his heavenly Father to this earth, becomes man, and lives, 
teaches and dies for us men, in order, as the Messiah, to 
redeem the whole world. In proof of this essential unity of 
the Johannine christology with that of the synoptists and 
Paul, we can appeal to the whole foregoing investigation, 
and conclude by pointing out that even hostile criticism 
does not succeed in establishing the truth of the liberal 
dogma of a christological antagonism between the Gospel of 
John and that of the synoptists and of Paul. 

With regard to the christological relation of the Fourth 
Gospel to the synoptists, Adolf Harnack believes that he may 
call John a “ glorified Matthew.’’! ‘“ Yet one can call him 
also just as well a glorified Mark and Luke; for he agrees 
with Mark in the dominant intention of bringing to light the 
divine sonship of Jesus.”? Luke, however, ‘‘ approaches in 
christology the type of conception found in John.’? Har- 
nack’s Berlin colleague, Pfleiderer, expresses himself even 
more decidedly: “It must be acknowledged that all our 
Gospels stand, in principle, on the same standpoint, and that 
the difference between Mark and the other two synoptists and 
John is only a relative difference of degree between the 
various strata of theological reflection and ecclesiastical con- 
sciousness.’’* Bousset confirms this estimate, and writes: 
** The fact has rightly been brought out that in this respect 
(the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus) our three Evangelists 
are different from the fourth only in degree.’’?> Edmund 
Stapfer goes still further : ‘‘ The Christ of the Fourth Gospel 
in no respect exceeds the Christ which the synoptists let us 
surmise. He helps us to understand the latter.”® Albrecht 
Kalthoff remarks : ‘‘ The synoptic Christ . . . does not stand 
a hair’s breadth nearer a really human conception of Christi- 
anity than does the Christ of the Fourth Gospel.’’” 

These admissions, made by good liberals and even by 
ultra-radicals, agree, therefore, with those of the concilia- 


1 Lukas der Arzt, 119 note. 2 id. ae Le Lvah  fe 

4 Das Urchristentum, i, 666, 2nd ed.; cf. Entstehung des Christen- 
tums, 186. 

5 Was wissen wir von Jesus? 30 f. (Halle, 1904). 

8 ‘* Te Christ du IV Evangile ne dépasse en rien celui que les synop- 
tiques nous font deviner. I] nous aide 4 Vapercevoir.”—/ésus-Christ 
pendant son mintstére, 326 (1897). 

7 Das Christusproblem, 21. 


ee 


= eg ee 


Ube Divinity of Christ after bis:;Death 403 


tory theologian of Berne, Fritz Barth, and of the orthodox 
Protestant, Professor Johann Kunze, of Vienna: ‘‘ We 
have not the right to reject this Johannine contribution (to 
christology); for even though the ideas in the Fourth Gospel 
may be more strongly defined and more clarified . . . never- 
theless, his portraiture of Christ is essentially the same.’ 
‘‘It is true, differences exist between the three synoptic 
Gospels and that of John, but if we do not exaggerate 
them artificially, and if we do not lift the Christ of John 
into the mists of heaven, and drag the synoptic Christ 
down into the dust of earth, then still always for one of 
religious sensibility there is only one Christ, and no essential 
difference between the two portraits.’’* The same thing 
is to be said about the relation of the Johannine por- 
trait of Christ to that of Paul. ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God, the Redeemer of the world, is for Paul, as well as for 
John, the nucleus and the star of Christianity.’’* Indeed, 
the Pauline christology is still more closely related to that 
of John than is that of the synoptists. It is not merely 
identical with it, as far as the matter is concerned, but it 
stands very near to it also in form. Fundamentally con- 
sidered, we meet with the Logos doctrine of the fourth 
Evangelist in all its principal points already in Paul, 
although the Apostle to the Gentiles does not use the ex- 
pression Logos. Anton Seitz has demonstrated this 
thoroughly and profoundly.+ It is, moreover, conceded by 
our critical opponents. Ernest Renan has already called 
attention to the fact that Paul “has set up a theory con- 
cerning Christ which is entirely analogous to the doctrine 
of the Logos, and later found its final form in the writings 
ascribed to John.’”® According to Harnack, the central 
idea of the Logos-Christ was ‘‘ prepared in advance, in fact, 
necessitated by the Messianic speculations, as the Apostle 
Paul and other old teachers had presented them.”® Johannes 
Weiss has ‘‘ found the fundamental characteristics of the 
Logos-christology already in Paul,” and so effectually that 
to him ‘‘ the doctrine, after Paul, cannot say much more 
that is new’’ on the subject.? The Johannine “idea of the 
Logos, with which the prologue begins . . . connects itself 
doubtless with the combination of Logos and Christ already 
existing in the writings of Paul.’’® ‘“ This Pauline Christ,’’ 
says Kriger, ‘‘is a divinely pre-existing being. ... It is 
true, Paul does not yet call the divine being, of whom he 
1 Barth, Die Hauptprobleme des Lebens Jesu, 266 (Giitersloh, 1907). 


2 Kunze, Die ewige Gotthett Jesu Christ, 22 (Leipzig, 1904). 
3 Paul Wernle, Die Anfange unserer Religion, 447, 2nd ed. (Tiibin- 


gen, 1904). 
4 Das Evangelium vom Gottessohn, 487-527 (Freiburg, 1908). 
5 L’Antéchrist, 76 (1873). 6 Das Wesen des Christentums, 127. 


7 Christus, 65; cf. 43-65 (1909). $7d.,87. 


404 Christ and the Critics 


speaks, ‘Logos,’ but even if the word is wanting, the thing 
itself is, nevertheless, there.’ And P. W. Schmiedel adds : 
‘“What Paul has said with increasing definiteness, only 
without using the word Logos, is uttered here [in the pro- 
logue] by the fourth Evangelist.’’? 

If, then, the Johannine christology is different from that 
of Paul and the synoptists only in regard to the form—the 
‘“how” of its representation—since it says essentially and 
practically the same thing of Jesus which the earlier writers 
of the New Testament reported of him, one more conse- 
quence follows: The christology of John is practically and 
essentially identical with the whole preaching and tradition of 
the early Church, exactly as we have proved it to be in 
regard to the synoptic and Pauline christology. Agree- 
ment with the doctrine of the early Church is also for John 
the guiding principle in all his utterances concerning Jesus— 
a principle which bears the stamp of the Evangelist himself : 
‘““ Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; 
he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also. Let that 
which you have heard from the beginning abide in you. If 
that abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning, 
you also shall abide in the Son and in the Father’’ (1 John 
ii, 23, 24). And his old disciples assert positively that the 
Gospel of their master corresponds exactly to the original 
doctrine. ‘“ This is that disciple who giveth testimony of 
these things and hath written these things [his Gospel]. 
And we know that his testimony is true’’ (John xxi, 24). 

The critics must subscribe to this decision concerning the 
origin of the Johannine doctrine of Christ, even if they are 
not willing to ascribe the Johannine writings to the Apostle. 
The conciliatory Berlin theologian, Julius Kaftan, expresses 
his conviction on this point in the following words: “ Jesus 
and Paul are the first two members of that historic series 
in which the development of our religion shows itself. The 
Fourth Gospel, with the Epistles belonging to it, joins it as 
the third member—the theology of John. Between Jesus 
and Paul the preaching of the early Church, which Paul 
found already existing, forms the medium of transition. .. . 
Thus John joins Jesus and Paul as the third in the series. 
And this series forms a straight line. The change of direc- 
tion lies not in the substance of the Fourth Gospel, but in its 
Hellenic frame, conditioned by contemporary history. ... 
That which constitutes its principal import is the continu- 
tion of the line which leads from Jesus to Paul.’’’ 

With this is included the fact that the Johannine christ- 
ology—in its essence and content, not in the Logos-form of 


1 Dreteinigkett und Gottmenschhett, 86. 
2 Das vierte Evangelium, 118; cf. 112 f£. (1906). 
3 Jesus und Paulus, 63, 67 (Ttibingen, 1906). 





The Divinity of Christ after this Death 405 


its representation—is identical with the self-consciousness 
and self-revelation of Jesus, precisely as we have proved it 
to be in regard to the Pauline, synoptic and, in general, to the 
original Church’s portrait of Christ. Indeed, the fourth 
Evangelist appeals not alone to this identity; he can with 
more right than any other canonical writer appeal to himself, 
to his historical experiences, and to his own eye and ear 
testimony : ‘‘ That which was from the beginning, which we 
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we 
have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the Word 
of life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen and 
do bear witness, and declare unto you the life eternal, which 
was with the Father, and hath appeared to us. That which 
we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you, that you 
also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be 
with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ’’ (1 John 
eae cys fObn X1x,.35's 1. John vy, 20). 


CONCLUSION 


E have reached the conclusion of our investi- 
gations of the consciousness of Christ. The 
results, to which we have come by the severest 
historical and critical examination of the proper 
sources of information, contradict throughout 
the views of the most modern sceptical students of Jesus 
Christ. 

Proceeding from religious-philosophical and religious-his- 
torical considerations of the doctrine of evolution, the liberal 
school declares that Jesus himself never was, and never 
claimed to be, anything more than a man, highly gifted by 
nature, and destined for.the further religious education of 
the human race. At most, conscious of his remarkable 
talents and high moral conduct, he applied to himself the 
contemporary Jewish ideas of a future theocratic founder of 
a kingdom, popularly called the Messiah, or Son of God. 
Of being the Messiah and Son of God, as Christianity has 
attributed these terms to Jesus, Jesus himself never had the 
faintest idea. 

How he was subsequently able to be designated as the 
divine Messiah is, however, easily explicable, and can be 
read between the lines of the Gospels and other early Chris- 
tian writings. The confession of the disciples of the Messiah- 
ship of their Master forms the beginning of the transforma- 
tion of the man Jesus into the God-Man. ‘Since Paul and 
the first disciples had declared the man Jesus to be the Christ 
(Messiah), they now also ascribed to him everything that 
Judaism had, until then, believed and expected from the 
Christ. And a halo of utterances born of faith so quickly 
enveloped the young carpenter and peasant of Nazareth that 
soon his modest yet powerful figure almost completely 
vanished from this magic cloud.’’! “ From the day on which 
ardent enthusiasm ventured to utter the words, ‘ Thou art the 
Messiah !’ a mighty flood of faith rose to, and overflowed, 
this Jesus of Nazareth, and never came to rest until the con- 
fession, ‘My Lord and my God’ had borne him upward to 
the throne of God himself.’”’? ‘“‘A deep gulf separates not 
only . . . the Johannine writings from the synoptic, but not 
less the synoptic history of Jesus from the real one. .. . 
The portrait of Jesus in our Gospels is entirely covered with a 
varnish, which in places allows absolutely nothing more of 
the original to be visible.’ 





1 Weinel, Paulus, Der Mensch und sein Werk, 244 (Ttibingen, 1904), 
2 71d., Jesus im XIX Jahrhundert, 108 (Tiibingen, 1907). 
3 Jiilicher, Meue Linien in der Kritik der Evangel. Uberlieferung, 


70 f. (Giessen, 1906). 
406 








a Se eS eee 


Se ee eS ee i 


i eae eS ae gt 


« 
) 
i 


Conclusion 407 


We have demonstrated, step by step, the incorrectness of 
this pretended evolution of christology, and proved the 
historical truth of the Messianic and divine consciousness of 
Jesus. Two main points have forced themselves upon us 
everywhere, and must be once more brought forward here in 
our conclusion. 

First: There exist no ‘‘ deep gulfs” between the christ- 
ology of the early, and that of the later; generations and 
literary sources of early Christianity. It is true, the form 
and forcefulness of expression and representation, in which 
the portrait of Jesus is delineated, differs in the individual 
writers of the New Testament. Yet in them all, in Paul, as 
well as in the author of the Acts of the Apostles, and in the 
synoptists as well as in John, we found the unqualified con- 
fession that Jesus is the Messianic Redeemer and the true, 
essential Son of God. To this conviction the clearer-sighted 
investigators, holding otherwise the most varied opinions, 
can to-day no more close their eyes. 

The Protestant conservative professor, Karl Miller, writes : 
““ Nowhere in the New Testament is there to be found a trace 
of evidence that people, who really believed in Jesus, have 
in fact estimated him otherwise than as the Messiah of God, 
who is invoked as God himself, and before whom men pros- 
trate themselves, as to the divine Lord.”* The theologian 
of Rostock, Richard H. Griitzmacher, expresses himself in 
precisely similar terms: “At the beginning of the twentieth 
century the unanimous result of the modern as well as of the 
ecclesiastical interpretation of the New Testament—and 
thereto later liberalism also gives its adherence in great 
measure—is this, that the Church’s doctrine of the God-Man 
Christ is fully justified in appealing to the New Testament in 
its entirety, and has further developed its content only in 
form.’’? Adolf Harnack condescends to make at least this 
confession : “‘ Already in the first two generations [therefore 
not first after the appearance of John’s Gospel] everything 
was said of Jesus Christ that men are in general able to 
say.’’> Still more definitely does Harnack’s colleague and 
kindred thinker, Johannes Weiss, remark : *‘ A gradual evolu- 
tion [of christology i in early Christianity] is scarcely observ- 
able.”’* “ Early Christianity is, at least in part, the religion 
of Christ—that is, the inward relation of faith to the exalted 
Christ stands in the central point. ... I do not conceal 
the fact that I, together with the majority of modern 
theologians, profess the (contrary) view, and that I hope 
that this view will gradually prevail in our Church. But, 


1 Unser Herr, 10 {. (Gr.-Lichterfelde-Berlin, 1906). 

2 Ist das liberale Jesusbild modern? 30 (Gr.-Lichterfelde-Berlin, 1907). 
3 Wesen des Christentums, 97. 

4 Johannes Weiss, Christus, 4 (Tiibingen, 1909). 


408 Christ and the Critics 


as an historian, I must say that it is far removed from the 
view prevailing among the early Christians.’’? 

The ultra-radical professor, Albrecht Kalthoff, of Bremen, 
summarizes the same conviction in the words: ‘‘ The Christ, 
of whom the old Christian writings tell us, is throughout not 
a man, but at the least a superman, yes, more than this— 
a Son of God, a divine Man. From the Church’s God-Man 
a straight line leads back through the Epistles and Gospels 
of the New Testament to the Apocalypse of Daniel, in which 
the Church’s imprint of the portrait of Christ originated. 
But at every single point of this line the Christ has also 
superhuman traits, and never and nowhere is he what the 
theology of the critics has wanted to make of him.’’? 

All the wonderful talk about the gradual evolution of the 
man Jesus up to the divine Man and divine Messiah-Christ 
in the course of the first century, and the digging of 
trenches between the original Christian, Pauline, synoptic 
and Johannine christologies, is, therefore, a matter of exceed- 
ingly hypothetical and fantastic dilettantism. We repeat 
once more, that there is a formal difference in the way in 
which the individual writers of the early Church expressed 
and represented their confession of belief in the Messiahship 
and divinity of Jesus. But there is no material, practical 
difference between the portrait of Christ in the first, second 
and third generations of Christian history. From the Church 
of the resurrection to the Church of John, the Christians 
unanimously beheld and confessed, in the Saviour, the Mes- 
sianic Redeemer and true Son of God. 


Secondly: This confession of the whole of primitive Chris- 


tianity is not the result of a retouching of the portrait by 
believers; but goes back to the Messianic and divine con- 
sciousness and confession of Jesus himself. 

The assertion that the portrait of Jesus has been little by 
little embellished through faith, and overlaid with a varnish 
of divinely human and divinely Messianic qualities, could be 
taken seriously only if separate strata of such legendary 
transformations could be proved. But this is by no means 
the case. From the pages of the whole New Testament only 
one portrait of Jesus confronts our gaze, as we have just 
seen—namely, the portrait of the divine man and the divine 
Messiah. This appears to us there at once complete, without 
the slightest approach to a gradual evolution from human- 
messianic to divinely Messianic and divinely human. Accord- 
ingly, it must be the essentially true reproduction of the 
original, historical portrait. 

This is actually confirmed also by all the New Testament 
writers. What they report, after the death of Jesus, of the 


1 Johannes Weiss, Paulus und Jesus, 4 f. (Berlin, 1904). 
2 Die Entstehung des Christentums, g (Jena and Leipzig, 1904). 





i 


if 
bi 


Conclusion 409 


Messiahship and divinity of their Master, they do not at all 
derive from the faith of their contemporary Church; no, 
they are conscious that they are only testifying to the Mes- 
sianic and divinely human consciousness which Jesus had 
revealed during his earthly life. We have been able to prove 
this fact clearly by the authors of the Acts and of the synop- 
tic Gospels, as well as by Paul and John. Not only that— 
the direct utterances of Jesus and his testimony to himself 
regarding his Messiahship and divinity also spoke just as 
loudly and unequivocally from the Pauline, synoptic and Johan- 
nine writings. 

And even if we ourselves did not have these written records, 
the unwritten testimony of the whole of primitive Chris- 
tianity would undoubtedly say to us that Christ proclaimed 
himself as Messiah and God. Even Harnack lays great 
weight on the point that “ outside of the four written Gospels 
we possess still a fifth, unwritten one, which speaks in some 
respects more clearly and impressively than the other four— 
I mean the entire testimony of the first Christian Church. 
We can gather from it what the general impression of this 
person was, and in what way his disciples understood his 
words and testimony to himself.’’! 

If liberal criticism lightly asserts that precisely only the 
supernatural side of the early Church’s christology is not to 
be regarded as the echo of the words and testimony of Jesus 
to himself, then it is not the objective investigation of history, 
but a secret wish that is father to such a thought. For the 
subjective criticism which advocates the theory of historical 
evolution—which is the basis of the denial of everything 
supernatural—Jesus cannot be the Redeemer and incarnate 
God. He must, as a mere man, have evolved himself from 
the humanity surrounding him. Everything superhuman and 
supernatural related of him can.be only subsequent additions 
and inventions of faith. Those books and passages of the 
New Testament, which affirm the contrary, must, accordingly, 
have come into it at a later date, or must in any case be 
looked upon as legendary expressions of faith. If there still 
remain any supernatural expressions concerning the person 
and life of Jesus, this remnant also is either denied or newly 
interpreted, until everything is made to harmonize with the 
portrait of Jesus, which they themselves have drawn or 
arbitrarily caricatured. 

Thus, and thus only, according to the evolutionary theory 
and the idea that Christ’s life was merely a phase of 
“religious history,’’ does one succeed in explaining the 
consciousness of Jesus and the earliest Christian reports 
concerning the Messiah and the Son of God, Jesus. Sceptical 


1 Das Christentum und dite Geschichte, reprinted in Harnack’s Reden 
und Aufsatzen, ii, 16 (Giessen, 1906). 


410 Christ and tbe Critics 


criticism professes to have found and given to the world the 
historical Christ, but in reality it has constructed its own 
modern Christ in opposition to real history. 

And also in opposition to all psychology, which is, if pos- 
sible, still worse. The evolutionary, religious-historical theory 
insists especially on the fact that the man Jesus has been 
transformed into the heavenly Christ, the divine Man and 
the divine Messiah through the psychological experience of 
the disciples and the early Church. But if so, it is naturally 
bound to show the connecting lines which are supposed to 
lead from the purely human self-authentication of Jesus up 
to the divinely human and divinely Messianic portrait of 
him drawn by the disciples and early Christians. But this 
immeasurable gulf is bridged only with an unlimited amount 
of fantasy, not with legitimate psychology. 

Indeed, how is it possible that the “ young mechanic and 
peasant of Nazareth,” whom the liberal investigators pour- 
tray, could, shortly after his death, become exalted in the 
circle of the disciples to that heavenly Christ, the world- 
redeeming Messiah and the true Son of God? How is it to 
be explained that the same men, who, only a little while 
before, had eaten and drunk with him, and by reason of years 
of intercourse had become convinced of his mere humanity, 
could take him now for a superman and for the pre-existing 
and essential Son of God? How is it thinkable, that the 


Jews who were true to the Messiah, and to whom all idolatry © 


of a creature was an abomination, ever folded their hands in 
prayer to the Jesus whom they had always heard pray to the 
Father, and that they could worship him whom they had seen 
live and die as a man? How comes it that all the Christians 
of the early times, the old disciples, like the synoptists, and 
Paul and John, all approved of this blasphemous deification 
of a human being and joined in it, and also that in the whole 
primitive Church not a sound of objection and indignation 
against it was raised? How is it, we ask with Kalthoff, how 
is it psychologically to be imagined that a ‘‘ Protestant- 
liberal” type of Jesus was laid in the grave and that a 
** Catholic ’’! Christ rose from it? 

Griitzmacher rightly says: ‘ Liberal theology has not yet 
comprehended that this religious-historical problem even 
exists, to say nothing of attempting then to solve it.’’? “In 
not quite one decade (for the rise of the Church’s dogma is, 
on account of Paul, not to be put back beyond the death of 
Jesus) to enrol in the category of the gods a man about 
whom men were still perfectly well informed, and to hang 
about him every conceivable ornament of oriental mythology, 
is the exact opposite of gradual evolution.’’* How can it, 


1 Kalthoff, Das Christus-Problem, 26, 2nd ed. 
2 Ist das liberale Jesusbild modern? 39. 3 td., 40. 





Conclusion 4II 


then, occur to the holders of the evolution-theory to cut so 
deeply into their own flesh by accepting such an unpsycho- 
logical and abrupt hypothesis? 

The liberal evolutionary theory can give to such questions 
at most the profound reply: That the exceedingly rapid em- 
bellishment of the man Jesus, which exalted him to the divine 
Man Christ, was brought about in consequence of the powerful 
impression which Jesus had made upon the disciples during 
his life, and in consequence of the visions of the resurrection, 
which they imagined they saw after his death. That, how- 
ever, is not to solve the problem of abruptness, but only to 
push it into the background. On that very account, indeed, 
it is a question of how the disciples, after the ignominious 
death of their Master, could live with and worship him as 
the risen Lord and Messiah, unless he had previously made 
upon them the impression of being the divine Messiah as long 
as he dwelt among them. ‘‘ For,” as even the liberal, 
W. Bousset, remarks, “it is indeed comprehensible that the 
first disciples of Jesus, all of whose hopes had been shattered 
by the death and burial of Jesus, and all of whose views of 
the Messiahship of Jesus had been destroyed, came back; 
under the impression of their experiences with the risen 
Jesus, to the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, if they 
had gained this belief previously through the utterances 
and the conduct of Jesus. But it remains perfectly inex- 
plicable how this belief could originate for the first time 
among the disciples after the great catastrophe; we should 
have then to suppose that those wonderful experiences of 
the Easter days had, in a purely magical way and without 
any psychological mediation, called to life something abso- 
lutely new in their souls. But, precisely from the standpoint 
of the strictly evolutionary-historical theory, this cannot be 
accepted.’’! 

The mere attempt to explain the origin of the disciples’ 
faith in the divine Messiah by this psychological enormity, 
and thereby to solve one riddle by another, is a direct blow 
to their own evolutionary theory, and a clear confession that 
the religious-historical and religious-psychological theory of 
the sceptics has here reached the limit of its art. 

There is only one true religious-historical and religious- 
psychological solution of the extsting problem—it is the 
derivation of the faith of the disciples in the divine Messiah 
from the divinely Messianic revelation of himself, made by 
their Master. If our opponents’ form of science, known as 
the ‘strictly historical and strictly psychological school of 
criticism,’’ wishes seriously to stand by its principles, then 
it must demand, still more decidedly than even we believing 
Christians do, that one should reason back from the faith of 


1 W. Bousset, Jesus, 77, 3rd ed. (Tiibingen, 1907). 


412 Christ and the Critics 


the early disciples and the original Church to the divinely 
human consciousness of Jesus Christ. Then it will have to 
acknowledge that ‘Jesus in his lifetime planted the only 
seed from which Christianity grew into life after his death ;””? 
that the christological dogma, in the full meaning of the term, 
‘“has its roots in the preaching and teaching of Christ ;’”? 
and that “ to that extent the Church’s faith in Christ . . . is, 
in the last analysis, the effect of the victorious, and even in 
death unbroken, conviction and faith of Jesus himself.’’? 

Thus do the desperate efforts of modern unbelief to deny 
the Messianic and divine consciousness of Jesus lead irre- 
sistibly back to the conviction that Jesus himself was con- 
scious of being the Messianic Redeemer and true Son of God, 
and proclaimed himself as such. 


1 Jiilicher, Paulus un@ Jesus, 69 (Ttibingen, 1907). 
2 Loisy, L’Evangile et VEglise, 164 (Paris, 1902). 
3 Johannes Weiss, Paulus und Jesus, 9. (Berlin, 1909). 





INDEX OF AUTHORITIES 


AALL, 392, 395 
Abbott, g1 


Ammon, 29 
Anaxagoras, 391 
Andrews, Hi: J.; 326 
Aristides, 21, 52 
Asquith, E. H., 29 
Atzberger, 397 
Augustine, 61, 62 


Bacon, B. W., 29 

Bade, 149 

Baldensperger, W., 135, 166, 172, 
174, 219, 293 

Ballard, F., 352 

Bardenhewer, Otto, 19, 33, 36, 47; 
50; 52, 64, 365 

Barth, Pritz, 20, 87, 219, 251, 280, 
291, 403 

Bartmann, B., 218 

Basilides, 35 

Batiffol, 47, 65, 103 

Bauer, rung, 6, 27, 29, 75, 770, 
77, 78, 126 

Bauer, Walter, 31 

Baur, Ferdinand Christian, 26, 27, 
Para NIA. Ss 70 TOO, TIA, 120, 
130, 190; 3253 347, 353 

Becker, 29, 149 

Beer, -G., 163 

Belser, Johannes, 19, 23, 46, 65, 
103, 275, 299s 317, 325, 326, 383 

Bensley, 164 

Bertling, 29 

Beth, K., 78 

Beyschlag, Willibald, 201, 206, 208, 
MOC att tele s21 3. 217, 200, 220, 
222,226, (220, .227, 243,346 

Blass, 325 

Boese, 49, 50, 53, 108 

Bohl, 149 

Bolliger, 108, 187 

Bonkamp, B., 87, 103 

Boor, C'de, 107 

Bornemann, 78 

Bousset, Wilhelm, 43, 77, 79, 81, 
Se tOl, 162, 0815.0 020, .T64\o TER, 
SEG LSO, 105.7274, 202;4272, 210, 
217, 219, 246, 248, 251, 266, 286, 
302, 334) 373) 411 

Brandt, Wilhelm, 134, 279, 305 

Bretschneider, 29 

Briickner, 29, 347 

Bruins, 126 


413 


Buber, 154 

Butchsel, 385 
Bugge, Chr. A., 292 
Burnouf, Emile, 76 


Caillard, 149 

Calmes, Th., 65 

GCaryy Gute 126 

Cassiodorus, 44 

Castellain, A., 361 

Causse, A., 172 

Celsus, 17, 39, 40, 66 

Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 3, 
6, 8, 9, 74, 246 

Chapuis, 172 

Charles, 163, 164 

Cheyne, T. R., 364 

Chwolson, 78 

Ciasca, 36 

Clemen, Karl, 333, 347 

Clement of Alexandria, 35, 46, 48, 
553 573 58, 65 

Clement of Rome, 21, 48, 318 

Colani, 172 

Cornely, 23, 53, 65, 103 

Credner, 325 


Daab, Friedrich, 2 

Dahne, 394 

Daliman; Gustav, 135; 163, 1972, 
258, 284, 292, 293, 294, 301, 305, 
306, 320, 374, 377 

Danko, 103 

Dausch, 65 

Deissmann, Adolf, 87, 88, 123, 
¥30, 220, 2375 320 

Delbriick, C., 73 

Delff, 29 

Delitzsch, Franz, 18, 156 

Penner) 5379 

Derambure, 135 

De, Wette, 27,0325 

Dobschiitz, 29 

Dollinger, 158, 394 

Drescher, Rich., 346 

Drews, Arthur,)3; 5,°3,.77, Jo 

Drummond, 394, 395 

Duchesne, 37 

Dunckmann, K., 78 

Durand eA eco 


Eckermann, 2 
Edersheim, Alfred, 155 
Ehrhard, 19, 47 


414 
Ephraem, 36 
Epictetus, 320 
Epiphanius, 37, 382 
Ermoni, 385 
Erwand, 57 
Eusebius, 13,39; 33}. 375, 46, 50; 


51, 55, 56, 58, 59, 64, 99, 322 
Ewald, Paul, 27, 29 


Feder, Alfred L., 53 

Feine, Paul, 190, 331, 347, 349, 361 

Relders 107. 124 

Feldmann, 151 

Pelten Ness 

Fiebig, Paul, 135, 274, 292 

PUOn ye wOl. 655198; 275 

Flemming, I., 163 

Fonck, Leopold, 65 

Férster, Fr. W., 78 

Pouard, C.,; 65)\24% . 

Frenssen, Gust., 5, 352 

Frey, 29 

Friedrich, Philipp, 136 

i Ties, 29) 

Fritzsche, 164 

Frommel, O., 123 

Funcke, Rich., E., 355 

Punks) X.,'47 5 405/50. 575 01 

Furrer, Konrad, 91, 201, 219, 224, 
226 227.) 220y 1250 


Gebhardt, Oskar v., 161 

Geffken, Joh.,-164, 263 

Gess, 29 

Gfrorer, 394 

Godet, F., 29, 241 

Goethe, Wolfgang, 1, 2 

Goussen, H., 36 

Gregory, C. R., 29, 41 

Gressmann, Hugo, 165 

Grill, Julius, 93, 288, 289, 290, 
333) 3875 389s 393, 394s 395: 397, 
39 

Grimm, Joseph, 87, 389 

Grossmann, 394 

Griitzmacher, George, 78 

Grtitzmacher, Richard, 20, 365, 
407, 410 

Gry 1.109 

Giidemann, M., 151 

Gunkel, H., 164, 364 

Gutjahr, F. S., 56 


Hadorn, W., 326 

Harduin, 61 

Harnack, Adolf, 1, 6, 8, 12, 19, 20, 
23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 33, 36, 37, 46, 
47, 50, 52, 53, 63, 67, 735 755 775 
79, 81, 82, 83, 90, 91, 94, 105, 
106, 107, 108,111, 112, 113, 115, 
123, 124, 128, 129, 134, 136, 179, 
186, 189, 199, 201, 206, 209, 210, 


| 


Christ and the Critics 


Harnack, Adolf—contd. 
225, 228, 231, 232, 244, 246, 248, 
265, 267, 268, 278, 279, 280, 312, 
317; 318; 324)'\3260,, 927, g20,aeuy 
333 364; 373s 379, 380, 400, 402, 
403, 497, 409 

Harris, J. Rendel, 36, 52 

Partin}. tr eck yeeg 

Hartl, Vinzenz, 4, 365 

Hartmann, Eduard v., 4, 116, 123, 
131, P71, 241,242, 270, 203,0agee 
344, 347, 351s 355» 350, 304, 384, 


395» 399 
Hase, Karl, 27, 215 


Haupt, E., 189 

Hausrath, Adolf, 20, 29, 81, 83, 
155, 187, 347, 352 

Havet; 1), 326 

Hawkins, 325 

Headlam, 325 

Heer, Joseph Michael, 365 

Hegel, 73 

Hegesippus, 18, 33, 107, 322 

Heigl, Barth., 24, 87 

Heinze, Max, 391, 395 

Hengstenberg, 149 

Henke, 77 

Hennecke, Edgar, 18, 22, 31, 32, 
33> 38, 221 

Heraclitus, 391 

Hermas, 54 

Hess, Wilhelm, 80, 206, 217, 226, 
228, 270, 286, 293 

Hieronymus, 382 

Hilgenfeld, 27, 28, 29, 53 

Hillmann, 364 

Hippolytus, 35 

Hobart, 46, 325 

Hochard, 76 

Hoffmann, Rich. Ad., 189, 2409, 
276 

Hollmann, Hans Georg, 172, 185, 
187, 189, 258, 321, 377 

Holsten, 27, 347 

Holtzmann, Heinrich Julius, 28, 
295) '799 Oty) L435 TA 3y ESO sens 
136, 219, 231, 233, 246, 276, 284, 
285, 292, 293, 294; 305; 335s 344s 
349; 364, 399 

Holtzmann, Oskar, 22, 63, 79, 81, 


Ol, 123, 130, 180, 208, ora eates 
217, 218, 2109, 2215.22, 220, 230) 
286, 292, 293, 294, 301, 304, 334 

Holz. Ps,420 

Honnike, Gustav, 165 

Hoyt, W., 241 

Hitihn, 149 

Hume, 73 

Huppert, Philipp, 5 


Ignatius, 21, 37, 48, 49, 60 
Ihmels, Ludwig, 186 





Snder of Authorities 


Innes, Taylor, 298, 299 

Irenzus, 33, 34, 35, 36, 375 45, 48, 
50, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 64, 66, 
67, 382 


Jakobsen, A., 126 

Jelski, 298 

wensen Wl. 97 

Jeremias, A., 77 

Jerome, 62 

Johnson, Edwin, 76 

Josephus, Flavius, 18, 42, 43, 44, 
162 

Julian the Apostate, 39, 66 

Wulieher, Adolf, (24.0282. 29; 446, 
Fash 84y QO, 103; 120,130,131; 
POG,02905-201 5233, 292) 316,5 325, 
334s 335» 338; 344, 352, 355s 3575 
361, 362, 373, 380, 406 

Justin Martyr, 18, 38, 52, 53, 58, 
61, 62, 162, 263 


Kaftan, Julius, 29, 190, 206, 243, 
244, 247, 361, 363, 399, 404 

Kaftan, Theodor, 347, 363 

Kahler, Martin, 13, 116 

Kahnis, 29 

Kalthoff, Albrecht, 7, 77, 114, 242, 
373 374, 402, 408, 410 

Karapet, Ter-Merkerttschian, 57 

Kastner, K., 298 

K.aulen, 103 

Kautzsch, E., 163, 392 

Keferstein, Fr., 394 

Keil, 275 

Keim, Theodor, 27, 28, 29, 39, 172 

Kellermann, B., 130 

meuner, Icarl A. H:,. 1555. 317 

Keppler, Paul, 295, 296 

Klasen Fr., 394 

Klausner, 155 

Klostermann, 325 

Kluge, O., 123 

Knabenbauer, 65, 94, 96, 97, 101, 
2533 275> 3255 353 

Kogel, J., 226, 265, 342 

Kohler, H., 29, 76 

Kolbing, P., 127, 357 

Kopler, L., 275 

K6stlin, 27 

Krauss, Samuel, 18 

Kriiger, Gustav, 338, 345, 347, 397, 
398, 401, 403 

Kuhl, Ernst, 195, 203, 204, 205, 
207, 208, 213, 220, 233, 280 

Kunze, Johann, 403 


Lactantius, 38 

Lahousse, G., 65 

Lagarde, P. de, 126 

Lagrange, 103, 136, 150, 152, 153, 
158, 163, 165 


415 


Laible, 38 

Landersdorfer, Simon, 365 

Leimbach, 149 

Lémann, A., 149 

Lepin, 9M.) 37,66," 91,4 244, 20a; 
279, 316 

Lessing, 67, 69 

Leuschner, 29 

Liddon, H. P., 241 

Lietzmann, 134 

Lightfoot, 50 

Linder, 29 

Lipsius, Fr., 13, 29, 244 

Lobstein, P., 29, 189, 364 

Loisy, Alfred, 49, 53, 83, 89, 91, 
95, 96, 97, 98, 130, 131, 146, 172, 
176, 185, 187, 201, 206, 210, 211, 
2is, 216,/217, 220,220,232, 244, 
246, 248, 264, 276, 278, 279, 284, 
285, 292, 294, 300, 301, 305, 306, 
339; 412 

Loman, 76, 126 

Loosten, 236 

Lucian of Samosata, 39, 66 

Luthard, Christian Ernst, 70, 352 

Liitzelberger, 29 


McGiffert, 347 

Macgregor, W. M., 241 

Maher, M., 36 

Manen, van, 285 

Mangenot, 65, 324 

Marcion, 34, 54, 59 

Marmorstein, 18 

Martineau, James, 126 

Matthes, 29 

Majors }.B.5/.279 

Meffert, Franz, 77 

Mehlhorn, Paul, 77 

Meignan, 149 

Meinertz, Max, 151, 179 

Meinhold, 126 

Merx, Adalbert, 36, 126, 221, 305 

Meyer, Arnold, 18, 38, 172, 245, 
248, 334, 345, 349, 351, 352s 353 
POT JIN Soo 

Minocchi, 79 

Moller, 149 

Mommsen, Theodor, 299 

Monnier, 172 

Morgan, W., 347 

Moske, E., 351 

Miiller, Karl, 29, 186, 190, 241, 
324; 386, 407 

Muratorl, 53 

Murillo, 65 

Muth, Fr. Seraph., 39 


Nestle, Eberhard, 21, 22, 23, 35, 
221 

Neumann, A., 171 

Nicolas, 29 


416 

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 248, 
305 

Nitzsch, Fr., 244 


Odland, 4 

Orelli, Conrad, 149, 151 
Origen, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40, 58, 65 
Ottley, R. L., 241 

Otto, Rudolf, 82 


Papias of Hierapolis, 19, 20, 37, 
5151525150) 104506, 1100, t03, 166 

Paulus, Gottlob, 70, 71, 364 

Pfannmiiller, Gustav, 2 

Biattisch,s) .,"305 

Pfleiderer, ene 2022 0G) 504,00; 
OA, MET AgNI DT, WI25 2331, 0715201, 
266, 279, 293, 330, 333s 347 349; 
3515 353: 355, 358, 364, 380, 390s 
391; 395, 398, 402 

Philo of Alexandria, 42, ae 394, 
400 

Philostratus, Flavius, 39 

Plato, 391 

Ean y rs 

Polycarp, 22, 37, 49, 50, 57, 61, 64 

POLE Mpek RD 7, 353 

Porphyrius, 39, 66 

Posmanski, 150 

Prat, F., 346 

Preusschen, Erwin, 21, 22 


Quadratus, 21, 108 


Rackam, R. B., 325 

Rademacher, L., 163 

Ramsay, 325 

Rasmussen, Emil, 5, 236 

Reimarus, Hermann Samuel, 12, 
67, 68, 74, 79, 172 

Reinke, 149 

Renan, Ernest; 26,027,,-20; .70;. 71, 
795130, (197) I98,. 90, 200,' 205, 
232, 245, 250, 205, 325, 345, 340, 
364, 403 

Resch, Alfred, 21, 29 

Réville, Albert, 201 

Réville, Jean, 90, 267, 394, 395 

Reynolds, 29 

Richter, 149 


Riehm, 149 
Ritson \Albrecht,.n2. 40 t64.0949, 
26 


7 
Ritschl, Otto, 12 
Robertson, John, 76 
Robinson, 29, 155 
Ronsch, H., 54 
Rose, V., 300 
hoser eer, Peter, cs 
Rothe, Richard, 12 
Rousseau, 67 


Ruegg, Arnold, 347, 352, 353, 357 
Ryssel, Victor, 164 





Christ and the Critics 


Saitschick, R., 78 
Sanday, W., 29, 241, 331 
Schanz;) Paul, \65,;°253). 2756 9mn 


3°9 
Schegg, 275 
Schell, Hermann, 300, 304 
Schenkel, 27, 29 
Schill, 70 
Schlatter, A., 130 
Schleiermacher, 19, 244, 267 
Schmidt, Nathaniel, 126, 127, 301 
Schmidt, P. Wilhelm, 202, 208, 
200, 213, 217, 220, 220,520 398404 
Schmiedel,Otto,'+29,)( Os, Ogpmaas 
90, 91, 114, 130, 202, 384 
Schmiedel, Peter Wilhelm, rhe? 
90/250, (202,251, 270, 28s, 328, 
391; 395, 396, 404 
Schnedermann, 29, 156 
Schnehen, W. v., 112, 116, 242, 


374 ; 
Scholl, Fritz, 220 
Scholten, 29 
Schubart, Fritz, 130 
Schuhmacher, H., 275 
Schulte, 149 
Schultzen, F., 189 
Schulz, Wilhelm, 244, 272 
Schtirer, #mil,) 307070, 30nu ee 
153, 154, 155, 156, 159, 163, 174, 
219, 267, 293, 298, 299, 325, 395 
schtitz, 29 
Sor WArtc, Ben30 
=chwegler, 27, 29 
Schweitzer, A., 1, 3, 6, 12;:20;2%5 
29, 69, 70, 74, 114, 115, 123, 171, 
172, 173, 1755 293 
Scott, 363 
Seeberg, Reinhold, 52, 244, 267 
Seitz, Anton, 17, 39, 253, 255, 3535 


403 

Sellin, Ernst, 149 

Semler, John Salomo, 69 

Seydl, 150 

Siegfried, 394 

Smith, William Benjamin, 77, 127, 
339 

Soden, Hermann v., 6, 36, 41, 42, 
83, 91, 114, 338, 363 

Soltau, W., 29, 91, 364 

Soulier, 3945 395 

Spitta, Friedrich, 30, OI, 141, 170, 
231 

Stakemeier, 155 

Stanton, 29 

Stapfer, Edmund, 199, 200, 201, 
207,208, 200; 210, 213, ar7eeue 
228, 237, 265, 278, 294, 298, 310, 
311, 402 

stark; W., 127542093 

Steck, Riu 737 t23 

Steinbeck, Johann, 241, 249, 259 





gndex of Zutborities 


Steinmeister, Fr. X., 365 

Stevens, G. B., 241, 324 

Strachan, R. H., 396 

Strauss, 
07-565, 915°972,..70;. 00) 104, 020, 
205, 280, 281, 364 

Strayer, P. M., 145 

Sttilcken, A., 31 

Suetonius, 17, 41 


Tacitus, 17, 41 

Tatian, 35, 36, 65 

Taylor, 29 

Ter-Minassiantz, 57 

Tertullian, 18, 34, 35, 38, 54, 55; 
56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65 

Theodoret of Cyrus, 36 

Thieme, K., 246 

Thikétter, ae 

Thoma, 29, 90 

Tillmann, fritz, 134, 135, 137; 
453 

Tischendorf, 22 

Titius, Arthur, 357 

Tregelles, 53 

Tyrrell, 79 


Usener, H., 364 


Vaganay, Leon, 164 

Veil, 52 

Verus, 76 

Volkmar, 27, 28, 29, 34, 
134, 172 

Vollers, Karl, 77 

Volz, Paul, 165 


535120, 


Watkins, 29 

Weber, Ferd., 156, eh 159 
Weber, Simon, 162, 352 

Weidel, Kye 

Weinel, Heinrich, 77, 134, 266, 


David Friedrich, 6, 26, 


417 


293) 312, 338; 339) 345: 3475 353, 
300, 379, 40 

Weiss, Bernhard, 20, 23, 24, 28, 
EE903 35,0201, 0202 1200 02 1er aia, 
24d //245,/220; 222, 226, 220, 220, 
205/244, 205,° 207, 270, 202,1204. 
324, 325) 335, 343, 3495 353 

Weiss, Johannes, 29, 78, 83, 129, 
PIG InE 725) 155) O75. 190, 200,200, 
207, 208, 209, 210, 213, 216, 236, 
286, 293, 302, 310, 312, 313, 323, 
3293 3372 338, 34° 341, 342, 343, 
3445 347, 348, 350, 356 357, 358; 
380, 3953 396, 403, 407, 408, 412 

Weisse, Christ., 29 

Weissenbach, Wilhelm, 172 

Weizsacker, Karl, 79, 91, 135, 138, 
3332 3532 40° | 

Wellhausen, Julius, 30, 79, gi, 123, 
129, 134, 137, 174, 186, 189, 246, 
279, 364 

Wendling, 28 

Wendt, Hans Heinrich, 29, 91, 135, 
1875201, 203; 200, 210,/211, 214, 
Bi Qpee2Oye22 1228.) 22042203 2008 
2773 293s 294; 295% 334) 353 

Wernle, Paul, 34, 85, 86, 130, 131, 
$075,201, 2003200, 210,211) 212, 
232; 246, 251, 345> 3475 349) 355 

Wobbermin, George, g1 

Worsley, Fr. W., 29, 93 

Wredé. Wilheliny) 22,67. 1135424, 
126, 129, 130, 137, 190, 254, 305, 
399, 3453 3475 359s 353, 372 

Wiinsche, 154, 253 


Zann, Lheodor, 23.124, 28, °35,.37, 
46, 47, 49, 54, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 
popes OL a 324, 325» 339 

350, 360, 389, 396 

7 plein. 149, 150 

Zeller, 27, 29, 392, 304, 395 

Zimmermann, Heinrich, 114, 130, 
172, 220, 246, 293, 364 


27 


w 





INDEX OF SUBJECTS 


Acts of the Apostles, 317-331; 
their authors, 324-326; their 
dates, 326; their historical truth- 
fulness, 325-326; their sources, 
326; their christology, 317-324, 
328-331 

Adoration of Jesus during his 
Hublic: life, 25°-268:; .after the 
Resurrection, 309; in the early 
Church, 322-325, 340-343; in the 
Apocalypse, 385-386, 389-390 


Adoration, religious, of Christ, 
250-257 321-324, 339; 349-342, 
386, 389 ) 


Agnosticism, 13 

Agrapha, 21 

Alexandrine Jews, their philosophy 
of religion, 392; their teaching 
concerning the Logos, 392-402 

Alogi, and their attitude toward 
the Gospel of St John, 37, 66 

Announcement of the birth of the 
forerunner, St John the Baptist, 


366 

Announcement of the birth of 
Jesus, 367-369 

Apocalyptic and_ eschatological 


notion of the Messiah, 163-170 
Apocalypse of Baruch, 164; its 
Messianic conception, 165-166 
Apocrypha of John, 9; their 
genuineness, 384; their christ- 

ology, 385-386, 402-404 

Apocryphal Gospels, 31-34; their 
content, 31-32; their origin, 33; 
their fate, 33-34 

Apocryphal literature, 22, 31-34 

Apologies for Christ, 8-9; their 
peculiarity, 10, 11; their con- 
tent, 11-12; their method, 12-14 

Apostasy from Christ and Chris- 
tianity, 3-7 

Apostles, unanimity of belief after 
the Resurrection of Christ, 309- 
316 

Apostolic fathers, 21 

Apparition at baptism, an objec- 
tive fact, not subjective, ecstati- 
cal vision of Christ or of the 
Baptist, 376-381; cf. Baptism of 
Jesus 


Appeal to Jesus in the primitive 
Church, 324-326, 330, 340-342 

Ascension of Christ, 316 

Asserted development of the Con- 
sciousness of Christ, 195-231, 
235-236 

Author of life—Jesus, 319, 321 


Baptism of Jesus, 132; is not the 
origin nor commencement of the 
Messianic consciousness of Jesus, 
215-225; revelation of Messiah 
and Son of God at the same, 216, 
3723 373 

Basilidians and the Gospels, 35 

Beginning, supermundane, eternal, 
divine—Jesus, 287 

Blasphemy as reason for condemn- 
ing Christ, 302-306 

Book of Henoch, 163; its Mes- 
sianic ideas, 165 


Canon of the Roman Church, 58 
Celestial man, Pauline, according 
to liberal theology, 333-334, 344, 


B57 

Cerinthus, 37, 383 

Christ and Christianity, 8-10 

Christ’s consciousness of being the 
Son of God, 225-231, 262-307; 
liberal theory about his origin, 
_22c, and significance, 262-267, 
268; not temporal and worldly, 
but eternal and supernatural, 
230-237; not only ethical and 
theoretical, but metaphysical, 
262-316; and Messianic con- 
sciousness, 196, 225-231, 260, 261, 
262-268, 269 

Christ’s denial in Protestantism 
of to-day, 3-6, 75 

Christ-Myth, 7, 27, 28, 75-78 

Christ-seekers, modern, 1-2 

Christianity of the liberal Pro- 
testants, 4 

Christianity, modern, 5, 1906 

Christology, synoptic, 88-go, 121- 
122, 363-381; Johannine, 92-08, 
381-405; of the Acts of the 
Apostles, 317-331; Pauline, 186- 
191, 331-363, 403 


419 


420 


Conception of the Messiah, Old 
Testament prophecies, 148-154, 
167-170; pharisaical. 154-163; 
eschatological, 163-170; Chris- 
tian, 170-194 

Condemnation of Jesus, 146, 
176, 297-306 

Consciousness of Jesus’ nature 
as the origin of his Messianic 
consciousness, 195, 231-237 

Consciousness of suffering in 
Christ, 143, 212-215 

Credibility of the Gospels, 66-117 
according to the early Chribtian 
conviction, 66; their disputa- 
tion by the heathen and Jewish 
polemical writers, 66-67; by the 
rationalists, 66-67; by the theory 
of deception of Reimarus, 67- 
69; by the natural explanation 
of the Gospels, 69-71; by 
Strauss’s mythical hypothesis, 
71-74 

Criticism of the Gospels, rational- 
istic, 26, 66; Reimarus’s, 67-69; 
Paulus’s, 70-71 ; Strauss’s, 26, 71- 
7a stat CDrrawat Ss, 273974 7. of 
the school of Tuitibingen, 27; 
Bruno Bauer’s, 27, 75-79; retro- 
spection of Ritschl - Harnack 
school, 28-31, 79, 126 


147, 


Damascus, Pauline episode of, 
346-354; evolutionary meaning 
thereof, 346; not a_ psycho- 
pathological vision of St Paul, 
but an objective appearance 
and revelation of Christ, 350; 
not the only source of Pauline 
christology, 342, 346, 361 

Daniel’s Son of Man, 151-152, 181, 
271, 301-302 

David’s Son, Old Testament, 149; 
Jewish-rabbinical, 134-135, 137, 
146, 156; position of Jesus as 
regards this Messianic title, 
134-135, 137, 182-184, 212-204 

Death of Jesus, his influence on 
the faith of the disciples, 300, 
3113 its redeeming significance, 
184-191 

Deception-hypothesis, Reimarus- 
Lessing, 67-69, Baur, 24-76 

Demand for love by Jesus, 254 

Demand of faith by Christ, 253- 
254 

Demons, their testimony to Jesus, 
137 

Diatessaron of Tatian, 26 

Divine consciousness, 248-250, and 
revelation of the divinity of 
Christ, 307 


Christ and the Critics 


Divine consciousness of Christ, 
his expressions, 250-262; cf. 
Christ’s consciousness of being 
the Son of God and revelations. 

Divinity of Christ, 241 - 405; 
Christendom, 241; denial by 
rationalism, liberalism and 
modernism, 242-245, 250; hu- 
manity of Jesus, 245-250; in his 
life, 245-306; after his death, 
306; in the early Church, 317- 
331; St Paul, 331-363; and the 
synoptists, 246-262, 268-272; 275, 
281, 282-286, 291, 294, 297, 306, 
363-381 ; and John, 92, 273-275, 
281-282, 286-291, 204-297, 302, 
309-317, 381-405 


Early Christian christology, 316- 
331, 406-412; its faith of the 
Messiah, 317; its testimony to 
the Son of God, 318-319, 331, 
407; its adoration of Jesus, 322- 
324; faithfully represented in 
the Acts of the Apostles, 324- 
331; not changed by St Paul, 
3290;. cf. Pauline, synoptic 
Johannine christology. 

Early Church and divinity of 
Jesus, 308-331, 353003) 4Gaaaam 
412 

Early Church literature and the 
Gospels, 46-62 

Early Gospels, 103 

Ecstatic—Christ, 198-200, 205, 211, 
216, 236-237; St Paul 350-361 

Elizabeth and her sayings of the 
Christ child, 368-369 

Emmanuel, 152, 163, 167 

Epistle of John, the first, its 
genuineness, 384; its doctrine 
of the divinity of Jesus, 384- 
385; its doctrine of the Logos, 
387 

Epistle of Paul, 22-25, 331 


Fpistle to the Hebrews, 22, 331, 
332 

Eschatology, Jewish, 163; its 
Messianic ideas, 164 - 169; 


modern eschatology, 171; its 
contrast to the Evangelical por- 
trait of Christ, 173, 174 

Esdras Apocalypse, 164; its Mes- 
sianic ideas, 166 

Eternity of Christ, 287, 336, 342- 
343, 386, 388, 389 

Eucharistic prophecy, 282 

Evangelists, their knowledge of 
languages, 41-42; their know- 
ledge of country, 42; their know- 
ledge of history, 42-44: their 
knowledge of the life of Christ, 





gndex of Subjects 


45; their personalities, 45-46; 
the tendency-hypothesis of Baur, 
743; according to sceptical criti- 
cism, 75-79; according to the 
liberal school and the most 
modern evolutionary criticism, 
79-83; their proof opposed to 
the latter, 83-117 

Evolution, christological, 121, 193- 
237, 333-334) 346, 406-412 

Evolutionary explanation of the 
consciousness of Christ, 196 

Evolutionary hypothesis of the 
liberal criticism of the Gospels, 
79-115 | 

Fxistence of Christ, 5-7, 75-79; 
denial by Bruno Bauer, 75; and 
the modern radical criticism, 5, 


7 

Rapectabion of the Messiah at the 
time of Christ, 123 

Expiatory baptism—Johannine and 
Jesus, 215-224 

Extreme liberal investigators, 127 


Faith of the Messiah of the Jewish 
people, 134, 136, 140, 143-147; 
of the rabbinical theology, 154- 
163; of Zachary, 163; Simeon’s, 
703 Ol the -diserpies,: 1875188, 
137, 141-144; of the first Chris- 
tian, Church, 130, 317, 318 

Farewell addresses of Jesus, 294- 
297 

Forgiveness of sins by Jesus, 182- 
£025°238) 315 

Fragments of Wolfenbtittel, 67-69 


Genuineness of the Gospels, 26-65 ; 
and the newer and newest criti- 
cism, 26; proofs for the genuine- 
ness, non-catholic, 31-37; non- 
christian, 38-40; Catholic, 4o 

Genuineness of the Acts of the 
Apostles, 324-326 

Genuineness of the Epistles of the 
Apostle Paul, 22-25, 332 

Genuineness of the Epistles of 
John, 384 

Genuineness of the unity of Father 
and Son, 276-278, 286, 290, 294- 


207 

Glory of Jesus, 294, 315, 342, 386, 
388, 389 

Gospel of James, 32 

Gospel of John, its origin accord- 
ing to the latest criticism, 29; 
the Alogi, 37; its real origin 
and author, 40-81; its credi- 
bility, 90-117; particularly as 
regards its christology, 91-97, 
381-405; its recognition and 
characteristic representation of 


421 


the divinity of Jesus, 92, 93, 
381-384, 386, 390; John and the 
divinity of Christ, 92, 93, 269. 
272; 278-279, 281-288, 294-296, 
303, 309-316, 376-405, 

Gospel of Peter, 32 

Gospel of the Hebrews, 31, 221 

Gospels, apocryphal, 22, 31-34 

Gospels, canonical, 22-116; their 
genuineness, 26-65; their credi- 
bility, 66-116 

Gospels, the Fifth Gospel, 24, 409 

Gospel of childhood of Jesus, 
canonical, its credibility, 124- 
125; its historical genuineness, 
363-365; its christology, 124, 
225, 231, 266-269, 363, 365-371 

Greek teaching of Logos, 390-392; 
its relation to the Philonic, 392; 
its contrast to the Johannine, 


395-400, 401 


Harnack - Ritschl theology and 

oC 3 E2,. 30} 79, TOO 242 

Heathen polemic of Christ, 38-40; 
sources of information about 
Christ, 17 

Heavenly voice at the baptism of 
Jesus, a significant event, 217, 
372 

Historical genuineness of Christ; 
see Existence of Christ. 

History of childhood of Christ and 
evolutionary psychology of Jesus, 
124-125, 225-231 ; see also 266-269, 


34 
Holy Ghost and Jesus, 317 
Human consciousness of Christ, 
245-248 
Human-divine nature of Jesus, 


245-250, 307 


Image of God, Christ, 337 

Incarnation of the Logos, 386, 388, 
389, 395 

Intermediary, Neoplatonic-Phil- 
onian and St Paul, 335, 344, 
346; and St John, 387, 390, 394, 
398 


Jahwe Elohim and the Lord Jesus, 
313-316, 319-324, 329-331, 3375 
338, 339-342, 343, 306-369, 374 

Jesus and Paul, 346-360; no dif- 
ferences between them, 359-360 

Jesus Christ, 138, 177-181, 197, 
202, 204 

Jesus’ consciousness of being the 
Son of God, not preparation of 
his Messianic consciousness, 225- 
230; not temporal and worldly, 
but supernatural and eternal, 
230-237; not only ethical and 


422 


theoretical, but also metaphysi- 
cal, 241-306: see also conscious- 
ness of being the Son of God 

nas the Redeemer, 183-190, 259, 
oS 

Jewish criminal trials and the 
trial of Jesus, 281-287 

Jewish fables concerning Christ, 
18-19, 34 

Johannine christology, 92-98, 382- 
405; its characteristic form, 381- 
386; its “‘ word ” form, 386-390 ; 
its difference from the Greek, 
Alexandrian-Jewish and Phil- 
onic doctrine of the Logos, 390- 
405; its relation to synoptic 
christology, 91-94, 381, 396, 399; 
its complete accord with Pauline 
and early Church christology, 
399-405; is identical with the 
self-consciousness and_ self-reve- 
lation of Jesus, 399-405 

Johannine problem, 91-98 

John the Baptist, his testimony to 
Christin g2.iae sort | io8o% shis 
preaching of the kingdom of 
heaven, 138; his embassy to 
Jesus, 139; witness of the theo- 
phany at the baptism of Christ, 
204; his penitential baptism, 
219-221 

joseph, the foster - father; 
annunciation to him, 368 

Jubilees, Book of the, 164; 
Messiahship, 165 

Judgement scene and the court 
testimony of Christ, 146, 147, 
176, 297-306 


the 


its 


Kingdom of God, see Kingdom of 
heaven, 

Kingdom of heaven, in the sense 
of the Old Testament, 153; of 
pharisaical Judaism, 157-163; of 
the Jewish Apocalypse, 165-170 

Kingdom of Sinai, in rabbinical 
theology, 158 


Last Judgement and Judge of the 
world, 151, 179, 249, 260 

Legend or history in the Gospels, 
80-115 

Liberal-conservative christology, 
its position to the Messianic 
consciousness of Christ, 203-205 ; 
to the divine consciousness of 
Christ, 243-245 

Liberal criticism and theology, 3- 
Su27 01,1120; 192;°242,1246,' 3 59- 
334 344-345, 364, 381, 393, 406- 
412 

Liberalism and rationalism, 2, 66, 
242, 250 


Christ and the Critics 


Life of Jesus, 288-290 

Light of the World, Jesus, 288 

Literature on the life of Jesus, 1; 
novels, 5 

Logia, 19, 50, 279 

Logos christology, according to St 
Paul, 334-336, 403-404 

Logos christology, Johannine, 386- 
390; its origin, 390; its par- 
ticular difference from the Hel- 
lenic-Philonic Logos doctrine, 
394-398; impossibility to derive 
them from the latter, 398-400; it 
has, in common with this, only 
the name and the shell in which 
St John poured the content of 
the christological revelation, 400 

Logos, the Greek, Alexandrian- 
Jewish and Philonian, 390-394; 
is neither person, nor man, nor 
Messiah, nor God, 394-398; c}/. 
Logos christology, Johannine 

Lord Jesus, application of this 
christological title in the early 
Church; |'313,.310,4322,me205 em 
presented by St Paul, 339, 340; 
divine significance of this title, 
313-317, 319-324, 330-331, 339- 
343, 344, 3606-369; c/. Omnipo- 
tence of Christ 


Manifestation of the Holy Ghost 
at the baptism of Christ, 217 

Manuscripts of the Bible, 40-41 

Maranatha, 329 

Marcionic Gospel, 34 

Mary, annunciation to, 367; 
praised by Elizabeth, 368, 369 

Master, ‘‘ good,”’ 248, 249 

Messiah’s acts of redemption, ac- 
cording to the Old Testament, 
ISI, 153; according to the rab- 
binical conception, 157; accord- 
ing to the Gospel, 183; accord- 
ing to St Paul, 185 

Messiahship, 137, 138, 143, 144 

Messiahship of Jesus, a life ques- 
tion of Christendom, 122, 123, 
195; 1n the foreground of the 
modern research into the life 
and character of Christ, 123; in 
the early Church, 317, 318 

Messiahship, the heart of Judaism, 
123; Old Testament, 148, 154, 
167, 168-170; rabbinical, 154- 
163; eschatological, 170 - 194; 
Philonic, 396, 397 

Messianic conception, Judaism of 
the Synagogue, 134, 136, 140, 
142-144, 145-147, 154-163; re- 
jected by Jesus, 134-135, 1375 
138, 142, 145-148, 170-177, 206 

Messianic consciousness of Christ, 





Snoder of Subjects 


126-237; denied by the rational- 
ists, 126; radicals, 126 


3 
Messianic kingdom, see Kingdom | Pauline 


of heaven 

Messianic mission and power of 
the Son of Man, 138; Daniel’s 
conception of the Son of Man, 
151, 181, 273, 274, 301 

Messianic testimony of Jesus to 
himself in general, 126-147; its 
announcement, 132-138; its de- 
velopment, 138-142; its contents, 
138, 142-144, 145, 170-194; its 
temporary concealment, 137, 138, 
144 

Miracles and rationalistic criti- 
cisMm, 72-74, 96, 97> 327 

Miracles of Jesus, 257, 258, 286, 
317, 318, 382, 383 

Mishna, 154; Messiahship, 155 

Modernism, 121, 201, 245, 263; 
cf. also the liberal criticism and 
christology 

Mosaism of the rabbinical syna- 
gogue, 154 

Mythical hypothesis of Strauss, 5, 
26, 71-74; Drews’s, 7-77, 79 


Natural explanation of the Gospels, 
69-71 

Nicolaitans, 382 

Nicodemus and Jesus, 273-274 

Nomism of pharisaical Judaism, 
155; its contrast with the pro- 
phetical expectation of salvation, 
156 


Omunipotence of Christ, 138, 181, 
102,,267-259,/270, 286, 315, 310 

Omniscience of Christ, 281, 337 

Original Mark, 20, 84 

Original Matthew, 20, 51 

Origin of the Messianic conscious- 
ness of Christ, 195-237; not to 
be found in a_ psychological 
evolution of Christ, 195-205 ; nor 
in the vocational experience of 
Christ, 206-215; nor at the 
baptism of Christ, 215-225; nor 
in the consciousness of his Son- 
ship, 225-231; but alone in the 
consciousness of his nature, 231- 


237 


Papyrus of Fayum, 19 

Parable of the vineyard of Jesus, 
291-292 

Pastoral Epistles, St Paul, 23, 331 

Pathological judgement of Jesus, 
198-200, 204, 211, 216-221, 235- 
237; of St Paul, 346-353 

Paul and Jesus, 362-363 


423 


Paul and the divinity of Christ, 
30-363 

christology, 331 - 363; 
shows no change, 3313; char- 
acterization thereof by liberal 
theology, 333-346; teaches the 
divinity of Christ, 335-346; not 
derived either from the Oriental- 
Greek mythology, nor from the 
Jewish Apocalypse, 346-349, 361 ; 
not sprung from a psycho-patho- 
logical experience, 330-340; had 
its source, on the one hand, 
from the objective apparition 
of Christ on the Damascus road, 
and, on the other, in the teach- 
ings of the original Apostles 
and the earliest traditions, 354- 
361; is in absolute conformity 
with the original portraits of 
Christ and that of Jesus him- 
self, 361-363; has put forward 
no new portrait of Christ, 328, 
331, 354-363; Pauline teachings 
concerning salvation, 186-194 

Pauline knowledge of real life of 
Jesus, 354-360; sources of this 
knowledge, 354-360 

Paul not a visionary, 350 

Peter’s confession at Cesarea 
Philippi, 142, 175, 282-287; its 
credibility, 287; does not form 
the beginning of the Passion of 
Christ, 212-215, 282-287 

Peter’s pentecostal speech, 319 

Philonian Logos speculations, 392 ; 
their connection with the Greek 
Logos philosophy, 390-394; their 
analogy to the Books of Wisdom 
of the Old Testament, 394; their 
difference from the Logos teach- 
ing of John, 395-400 

Political Messianic conception of 
Judaism, 134, 137, 140, 142-143, 
145, 146, 154-163; never accepted 
by Christ, 134-135, 137-140, 145- 
147, 170-177, 207 

Popular books, 
ligious, 5 

Portrait of Jesus, synoptic, 87-89; 
122, 363-381; Johannine, 92, 93, 
381-405; Pauline, 185-190, 331- 
363; of the early Church, 317- 
331, 354; liberal, 79-84, 121, 126, 
241-246, 332-334, 344-345, 346, 
364, 373-377, 406; eschatological, 
171-178; liberal - conservative, 
202-204, 243-245 

Possessed, 137 

Pragmatism of Christ’s revelation 
to, himself, 134,) 137,..138, 490; 
143-144, 214, 307 

Pre-existence of Christ, 273-274, 


historical, re- 


424 Christ and the Critics 


278-279, 281-282, 288, 294, 295- 
296, 335, 344, 367-368, 371, 382, 
387-388, 389, 

Pre-existence of the Messiah ac- 
cording to rabbinical theology, 
162 

Prohibition by Christ of the pub- 
lication of his Messiahship, 137, 
138, 143, 144 

Prologue of the Gospel of John, 
386-387, 396, 398 _ 

Prophecies, Messianic, 149 

Proskynesis, 255-257 

Psalms of Solomon, 161 


Rabbinical theology, 154; see also 
Messianic consciousness, rab- 
binical 

Radical criticism, 5-8, 27, 66, 126, 
196; explanation of the con- 
sciousness of Jesus, 196 

Rationalism and liberalism, 2-3, 
242, 249, 250 

Rationalistic research concerning 
Christ, 2-3, 12; criticism of the 
Gospels,',26, 65,126; ‘242 

Religio- psychologic super - criti- 
cism, 198; explanation of the 
consciousness of Jesus, 198 

Reorganization of the Christian 
standards, 4 

Research into the life of Jesus, 
by believing apologists, 8-14, 
192, 244, by unbelieving, 1-8, 
192, 241; by rationalists, 3, 193, 
215, 243; by radicals, 6, 192; by 
liberals, 4,°'192-193, 242, 392- 
334, 346, 364, 373, 393, 406; by 
liberal - conservatives, 194-197, 
244, 246: by modernists, 122, 
192, 245, 263 

Resurrection and the divinity of 
Christ, 309, 317; Apostles’ 
belief, 3009, 312 

Revelation, 268-269; first, in the 
temple, 269-272; commencement 
of the, to the disciples, 272-281 ; 
progress of the, to the disciples 
and people in Galilee, 281-286; 
intensification of the, to the 
people and disciples in Judea 
and Jerusalem, 286-294; conclu- 
sion of the revelation of the 
divine sonship to the disciples 
and judges in view of his death, 
294-306; after the resurrection, 
sa a el 

Revelation in the temple of the 
twelve-year-old Jesus, 226-231, 
269-272 

Revelation of the divine sonship 
of Christ, 268-306 


Romans, heathen, and Christi- 
anity, 15 


Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, 


335 
Sayings of the Lord, 19, 50-51, 267 
Sceptical criticism of the Gospels, 


27307951 ee 

School of Ritschl, 3, 12, 30, 79, 
198, 243 

Servant of God, 151, 183 

Shepherds, annunciation to them, 
369, 370 

Sibylline Oracle, 164, 166 

Simeon the Elder, his knowledge 
of christology, 169, 370 

Similarity of the nature of Christ 
with the Father, 276-278, 286, 
291, 294-2 

oe of Gods sheen of this title 
in colloquial language, 242; in 
its application to Christ, 243; 
see also Christ’s consciousness of 
divine sonship, 246-306; in the 
synoptic Gospels, 246-251, 254- 
260, 261-269, 274-278, 281-287, 
366-368, 371-374, 379; in John, 
251-255, 261-263, 268-274, 279- 
282, 288, 381-389; in the Acts of 
the Apostles, 252-258; in Paul, 

8- ’ 

Say ae Pease why and in what 
sense Christ assumed this title, 
134-136, 181 

Sophia of the Old Testament and 
Philo, 393-394, 396-397. 

Sources of the life of Christ, 17- 
117; heathen, 17, Jewish, 18; 
Christian, 18-19; see also Gos- 
pels ; 

Sovereignty and Christ’s position 
as the Lord, 311-317, 319-324, 
329-331 339-343, 344, 366-369, 
377, 385, 386, 389 

Speeches of Christ, 19, 50-51, 279 

Stoic preaching regarding Logos, 
391-392; its relation to the 
Philonian, 392; to the Johan- 
nine, 394-400 

Subjectivity of modern Gospel 
criticism, I10-115 

Subjectivity of the modern ideal 
of Christ, 5, 81-82, 195-196, 236 

Symbolic meaning of Christ’s con- 
ception of baptism, 214-219 

Symbolic meaning of the tempta- 
tion of Christ, 201-208 

Synoptic christology, its content, 
87-91, 363; its characteristics, 
87-91, 296-301; the relation to 
the Johannine, 94, 382, 401; its 
harmony with the historical 


a eg Se 


Fnder of Subjects 


portrait of Christ, 87-91, 364- 
366, 396-402; see also 83-90, 96- 
116 


Synoptic Gospels, their origin ac- 
cording to the newer criticism, 
27-28; their genuineness, 40-65 ; 
their credibility and historical 
accuracy, 83-90, 98-115, 375-381 

Synoptic questions, 83-90 

Synoptists and the divinity of 
Christ, 246-262, 267-273, 275-281, 


282-286, 291-294, 297-306, 363- 
381, 401 

Syrus Sinaiticus, 36 

Talmud, 154; its Messiahship, 


155, its citations about Christ, 
ISf/10, 30 

Teachings of the Apostles, 21, 47- 
48, 315 

Temptation of Christ, 133; its 
meaning according to modern 
criticism, 200, 203, 207 

Tendency-hypothesis, Baur’s, 26, 
74, 106 

Theophany, see Baptism of Christ 

Theory of vision about the baptism 
of Christ, 216-220 

Thomas, Gospels of, 32 

Thomas, testimony of, 309-311, 
314, 315 

Toldoth Jeshu, 18, 38 

Trinitarian revelation of Christ, 

meaty 





425 
True word of Celsus, 38-40 

Truth, Jesus, 289 

Ttibingen school, 27, 28, 74 
Twelve-year-old Jesus in _ the 


temple, his sonship and Mes- 
sianic consciousness, 226-231; 
his revelation of the Son of 
God, 269-272 


Untenability of the denial by the 
extreme liberal investigators of 
Christ’s Messianic conscious- 
ness, 127-132; its origin, 195- 
237; its asserted development, 
196-231, 235-247 


Valentinian and the Gospels, 35, 

Visionary state of mind of Christ, 
198-200, 204, 211, 216, 217, 235- 
237 

Visionary state of mind of St 
Paul, 346-354 


Way, Jesus, 288-290 

Works of Jesus, divine, 257-261, 
276, 286, 315, 316, 335-337 

Works of omnipotence by Christ, 
255-261, 276, 281, 316, 335-337 

World-framer, Neoplatonic and 
Christian, 335, 337, 390, 398 


Zachary, his Messianic concep- 
tion, 168, 366; his prophecy of 
Christ, 366-367 








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